DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY east campus LIBHATIY bo R 'ii., £)0 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/details/principiaethica01 moor PEINCIPIA ETHICA Everything is what it is, and not another thing” Bishop BornuB PRINCIPIA ETHICA BY GEORGE EDWARD MOORE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE LONDON • NEW YORK • MELBOURNE Published by the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 IRP Bentley House, 200 Euston Road, London NWl 2DB 32 East 57th Street, New York, NY 10022, USA 296 Beaconsfield Parade, Middle Park, Melbourne 3206, Australia ISBN 0 521 05753 1 hard covers ISBN 0 521 09114 4 paperback First edition 1903 Reprinted 1922 1929 1948 1951 1954 1956 1959 First paperback edition 1959 Reprinted 1960 1962 1965 1966 1968 1971 1976 Printed in Great Britain at the University Printing House, Cambridge (Euan Phillips, University Printer) lE^C.L. no /^957 /9o3 DOCTORIBUS AMICISQUE CANTABRIGIENSIBUS DISOIPULUS AMICUS CANTABRIGIENSIS PRIMITIAS D. D. D. AUCTOR PREFACE. TT appears to me that in Ethics, as in all other philosophical studies, the difficulties and disagreements, of which its history is full, are mainly due to a very simple cause: namely to the attempt to answer questions, without first discovering precisely what question it is which you desire to answer. I do not know how far this source of error would be done away, if philosophers would try to discover what question they were asking, before they set about to answer it; for the work of analysis and distinction is often very difficult : we may often fail to make the necessary discovery, even though we make a definite attempt to do so. But I am inclined to think that in many cases a resolute attempt would be sufficient to ensure success ; so that, if only this attempt were made, many of the most glaring difficulties and disagreements in philosophy would disappear. At all events, philosophers seem, in general, not to make the attempt; and, whether in consequence of this omission or not, they are constantly endeavouring to prove that ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ will answer questions, to which neither answer is correct, owing to the fact that what they have before their minds is not one question, but several, to some of which the true answer is ‘No,’ to others ‘Yes.’ I have tried in this book to distinguish clearly two kinds of question, which moral philosophers have always professed to Vlll PREFACE answer, but which, as I have tried to shew, they have almost always confused both with one another and with other questions. These two questions may be expressed, the first in the form : What kind of things ou ght to exist for their own sakes ? the second in the form : What kind of actions ought we to perform ? I have tried to shew exactly what it is that we ask about a thing, when we ask whether it ought to exist for its own sake, is good in itself or has intrinsic valu e ; and exactly what it is that we ask about an action, when we ask whether we ought to do it, whether it is a right action or a duty. But fi-om a clear insight into the nature of these two questions, there appears to me to follow a second most impor- tant result: namely, what is the nature of the evidence, by which alone any ethical j iropos ibion can be proved or disproved, con- firmed or rendered doubtful. Once we recognise the exact meaning of the two questions, I think it also becomes plain exactly what kind of reasons are relevant as arguments for or against any particular answer to them. It becomes plain that, for answers to the first question, no relevant evidence whatever can be adduced : from no other truth, except themselves alone, can it be inferred that they are either true or false. We can guard against error only by taking care, that, when we try to answer a question of this kind, we have before our minds that question only, and not some other or others ; but that there is great danger of such errors of confusion I have tried to shew, and also what are the chief precautions by the use of which we may guard against them. As for the second question, it becomes equally plain, that any answ’er to it is capable of proof or dis- proof — that, indeed, so many different considerations are relevant to its truth or falsehood, as to make the attainment of proba- bility very difficult, and the attainment of certainty impossible. Nevertheless the kind of evidence, which is both necessary and alone relevant to such proof and disproof, is capable of exact PREFACE is definition. Such evidence must contain propositions of two kinds and of two kinds only : it must consist, in the first place, of truths with regard to the results of the action in question — of causal truths — but it must also contain ethical truths of our first or self-evident class. Many truths of both kinds are necessary to the proof that any action ought to be done ; and any other kind of evidence is wholly irrelevant. It follows that, if any ethical philosopher offers for propositions of the first kind any evidence whatever, or if, for propositions of the second kind, he either fails to adduce both causal and ethical truths, or adduces truths that are neither, his reasoning has not the least tendency to establish his conclusions. But not only are his conclusions totally devoid of weight : we have, moreover, reason to suspect him of the error of confusion ; since the offering of irrelevant evidence generally indicates that the philosopher who offers it has had before his mind, not the question which he professes to answer, but some other entirely different one. Ethical discussion, hitherto, has perhaps consisted chiefly in reasoning of this totally irrelevant kind. One main object of this book may, then, be expressed by slightly changing one of Kant’s famous titles. I have endea- voured to write ‘Prolegomena to any future Ethics that can possibly pretend to be scientific.’ In other words, I have endeavoured to discover what are the fundamental principles of ethical reasoning; and the establishment of these principles, rather than of any conclusions which may be attained by their use, may be regarded as my main object. I have, however, also attempted, in Chapter VI, to present some conclusions, with regard to the proper answer of the question ‘What is good in itself?’ which are very different from any which have commonly been advocated by philosophers. I have tried to define the classes within which all great goods and evils fall ; and I have maintained that very many different things are good and evil X PREFACE in themselves, and that neither class of things possesses any other property which is both common to all its members and peculiar to them. In order to express the fact that ethical propositions of my first class are incapable of proof or disproof, I have sometimes followed Sidgwick’s usage in calling them ‘ Intuitions.’ But I beg it may be noticed that I am not an ‘ Intuitionist,’ in the ordinary sense of the term. Sidgwick himself seems never to have been clearly aware of the immense importance of the difference which distinguishes his Intuitionism from the common doctrine, which has generally been called by that name. The Intuitionist proper is distinguished by maintain- ing that propositions of my second class — propositions which assert that a certain action is right or a duty — are incapable of proof or disproof by any enquiry into the results of such actions. I, on the contrary, am no less anxious to maintain that pro- positions of this kind are not ‘Intuitions,’ than to maintain that propositions of my first class are Intuitions. Again, I would wish it observed that, when I call such propositions ‘ Intuitions,’ I mean merely to assert that they are incapable of proof ; I imply nothing whatever as to the manner or origin of our cognition of them. Still less do I imply (as most Intuitionists have done) that any proposition whatever is true, because we cognise it in a particular way or by the exercise of any particular faculty : I hold, on the contrary, that in every way in which it is possible to cognise a true proposition, it is also possible to cognise a false one. When this book had been already completed, I found, in Brentano’s ‘ Origin of the Knowledge of Right and Wrong V 1 ‘ The Origin of the Knowledge of Kiglit and Wrong.’ By Franz Brentano. English Translation by Cecil Hague. Constable, 1902. — I have written a review of this book, which will, I hope, appear in the International Journal of Ethics for October, 1903. I may refer to this review for a fuller account of my reasons for disagreeing with Brentano. PEEFACB 2U opinions far more closely resembling my own, than those of any other ethical writer with whom I am acquainted. Brentano appears to agree with me completely (1) in regarding all ethical propositions as defined by the fact that they predicate a single unique objective concept; (2) in dividing such propositions sharply into the same two kinds ; (3) in holding that the first kind are incapable of proof ; and (4) with regard to the kind of evidence which is necessary and relevant to the proof of the second kind. But he regards the fundamental ethical concept as being, not the simple one which I denote by ‘ good,’ but the complex one which I have taken to define ‘ beautiful ’ ; and he does not recognise, but even denies by implication, the principle which I have called the 'principle of organic unities. In conse- quence of these two differences, his conclusions as to what things are good in themselves, also differ very materially from mine. He agrees, however, that there are many different goods, and that the love of good and beautiful objects constitutes an important class among them. I wish to refer to one oversight, of which I became aware only when it was too late to correct it, and which may, I am afraid, cause unnecessary trouble to some readers. I have omitted to discuss directly the mutual relations of the several different notions, which are all expressed by the word ‘ end.’ The consequences of this omission may perhaps be partially avoided by a reference to my article on ‘Teleology’ in Baldwin’s Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology. If I were to rewrite my work now, I should make a very different, and I believe that I could make a much better book. But it may be doubted whether, in attempting to satisfy myself, I might not merely render more obscure the ideas which I am most anxious to convey, without a corresponding gain in com- pleteness and accuracy. However that may be, my belief that PREFACE xii to publish the book as it stands was probably the best thing I could do, does not prevent me from being painfully aware that it is full of defects. Trinity College, Cambridge. August, 1903 . [This book is now reprinted without any alteration whatever, except that a few misprints and grammatical mistakes have been corrected. It is reprinted, because I am still in agreement with its main tendency and conclusions; and it is reprinted without alteration, because I found that, if I were to begin correcting what in it seemed to me to need correction, I could not stop short of rewriting the whole book. G. E. M.] Cambridge, 1922 . TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF ETHICS, A SECTION. PAGE 1. In order to define Ethics, we must discover what is both common and peculiar to all undoubted ethical judgments ; . . . 1 2. but this is not that they are concerned with human conduct, but that they are concerned with a certain predicate ‘ good,’ and its converse ‘bad,’ which may be applied both to conduct and to other things. ........ 1 3. The subjects of the judgments of a scientific Ethics are not, like those of some studies, ‘ particular things ’ ; . , . . 3 4. but it includes all universal judgments which assert the relation of ‘goodness’ to any subject, and hence includes Casuistry . S B. f" 5. It must, however, enquire not only what things are universally related to goodness, but also, what this predicate, to which they are related, is ; . . . . . . . . 6 6. and the answer to this question is that it is indefinable . . 6 7. or simple ; for if by definition be meant the analysis of an object of thought, only complex objects can be defined ; . . . 7 8. and of the three senses in which ‘ definition ’ can be used, this is the most important. ........ 8 9. What is thus indefinable is not ‘ the good,’ or the whole of that which always possesses the predicate ‘good,’ but this predicate itself. ........... 8 10. ‘Good,’ then, denotes one unique simple object of thought among innumerable others; but this object has very commonly been identified with some other — a fallacy which may be called ‘ the naturalistic fallacy ’ 9 XIV CONTENTS SECT. PAGE 11. and which reduces what is used as a fundamental principle of Ethics either to a tautology or to a statement about the meaning of a word. 10 12. The nature of this fallacy is easily recognised ; . . . .12 13. and if it were avoided, it would be plain that the only alter- natives to the admission that ‘good’’ is indefinable, are either that it is complex or that there is no notion at all peculiar to Ethics — alternatives which can only be refuted by an appeal to inspection, but which can he so refuted. . . 15 14. The ‘naturalistic fallacy’ illustrated by Bentham; and the im- portance of avoiding it pointed out. 17 C. 15. The relations which ethical judgments assert to hold universally between ‘ goodness ’ and other things are of two kinds : a thing may be asserted either to he good itself or to be causally related to something else which is itself good — to be ‘good as £k_m^^ns.’ . 21 16. Our investigations of the latter kind of relation cannot hope to establish more than that a certain kind of action •will generally be followed by the best possible results ; .... 22 17. but a relation of the former kind, if true at all, will be true of all cases. All ordinary ethical judgments assert causal rela- tions, but they are commonly treated as if they did not, because the two kinds of relation are not distinguished. . 23 D. 18. The investigation of intrinsic values is complicated by the fact that the value of a whole may be different from the sum of the values of its parts, 27 19. in which case the part has to the whole a relation, which exhibits an equally important difference from and resemblance to that of means to end 29 20. The term ‘ organic whole ’ might well be used to denote that a whole has this property, since, of the two other properties which it is commonly used to imply, 30 21. one, that of reciprocal causal dependence between parts, has no necessary relation to this one, 31 22. and the other, upon which most stress has been laid, can be true of no whole whatsoever, being a self-contradictory con- ception due to confusion 33 23. Summary of chapter 36 CONTENTS XV CHAPTER II. NATUKALISTIC ETHICS. SECT. PAGE 24. This and the two following chapters will consider certain proposed answers to the second of ethical questions : What is good in itselfl These proposed answers are characterised by the facts (1) that they declare some one kind of thing to be alone good in itself ; and (2) that they do so, because they suppose this owe thing to define the meaning of ‘good.’ .... 37 25. Such theories may be divided into two groups (1) Metaphysical, (2) Naturalistic : and the second group may be subdivided into two others, (a) theories which declare some natural object, other than pleasure, to be sole good, (6) Hedonism. The pre- sent chapter will deal with (a) 38 26. Definition of what is meant by ‘ Naturalism.’ .... 39 27. The common argument that things are good, because they are ‘ natural,’ may involve either (1) the false proposition that the ‘ normal,’ as such, is good ; 41 28. or (2) the false proposition that the ‘ necessary,’ as such, is good 44 29. But a systematised appeal to Nature is now most prevalent in connection with the term ‘ Evolution.’ An examination of Mr Herbert Spencer’s Ethics will illustrate this form of Naturalism 45 30. Darwin’s scientific theory of ‘ natural selection,’ which has mainly caused the modem vogue of the term ‘Evolution,’ must be carefully distinguished from certain ideas which are commonly associated with the latter term. . . 47 31. Mr Spencer’s connection of Evolution with Ethics seems to shew the influence of the naturalistic fallacy ; . . .48 32. but Mr Spencer is vague as to the ethical relations of ‘pleasure’ and ‘evolution,’ and his Naturalism may be mainly Natural- istic Hedonism. ......... 49 33. A discussion of the third chapter of the Data of Ethics serves to Illustrate these two points and to shew that Mr Spencer is in utter confusion with regard to the fundamental principles of Ethics 51 34. Three possible views as to the relation of Evolution to Ethics are distinguished from the naturalistic view to which it is proposed to confine the name ‘ Evolutionistic Ethics.’ On any of these three views the relation would be unimportant, and the ‘Evolutionistic’ view, which makes it important. involves a double fallacy. ....... 54 35. Summary of chapter. 58 XVI CONTENTS CHAPTER III. HEDONISM. SECT. page 36. The prevalence of Hedonism is mainly due to the naturalistic fallacy .59 37. Hedonism may be defined as the doctrine that ‘ Pleasure is the sole good’ : this doctrine has always been held by Hedonists and used by them as a fundamental ethical principle, al- though it has commonly been confused with others. . 61 38. The method pursued in this chapter will consist in exposing the reasons commonly oSered for the truth of Hedonism and in bringing out the reasons, which suffice to shew it untrue, by a criticism of J. S. Mill & H. Sidgwick. .... 63 A. 39. Mill declares that ‘ Happiness is the only thing desirable as an end,’ and insists that ‘ Questions of ultimate ends are not amenable to direct proof ’ ; 64 40. yet he gives a proof of the first proposition, which consists in (1) the fallacious confusion of ‘desirable’ with ‘desired,’ . G6 41. (2) an attempt to shew that nothing b ut pleasure is desired. . 67 42. The theory that nothing but pleasure is desired seems largely due to a confusion between the cause and the object of desire : pleasure is certainly not the sole object of desire, and, even if it is always among the causes of desire, that fact would not tempt anyone to think it a good. ... 68 43. Mill attempts to reconcile his doctrine that pleasure is the sole object of desire with his admission that other things are desired, by the absurd declaration that what is a means to happiness is ‘ a part ’ of happiness 71 44. Summary of Mill’s argument and of my criticism. ... 72 B. 45. We must now proceed to consider the principle of Hedonism as an ‘ Intuition,’ as which it has been clearly recognised by Prof. Sidgwick alone. That it should be thus incapable of yjroo/ is not, in itself, any reason for dissatisfaction. . . 74 46. In thus beginning to consider what things are good in them- selves, we leave the refutation of Naturalism behind, and enter on the second division of ethical questions. . . .76 CONTENTS XVll SECT. PAGB 47. Mill’s doctrine that some pleasures are superior ‘in quality’ to others implies both (1) that judgments of ends must he ‘intuitions’ 77 48. and (2) that pleasure is not the sole good. ..... 79 49. Prof. Sidgwick has avoided these confusions made by Mill : in considering his arguments we shall, therefore, merely con- sider the question ‘Is pleasure the sole good?’ ... 81 50. Prof. Sidgwick first tries to shew that nothing outside of Human Existence can be good. Reasons are given for doubting this. ......... 81 51. He then goes on to the far more important proposition that no part of Human Existence, except pleasure, is desirable. . 85 52. But ‘pleasure must be distinguished from consciousness of pleasure, and (1) it is plain that, when so distinguished, pleasure is not the sole good; ...... 87 53. and (2) it may be made equally plain that consciousness of pleasure is not the sole good, if we are equally careful to dis- tinguish it from its usual accompaniments. .... 90 54. Of Prof. Sidgwick’s two arguments for the contrary view, the second is equally compatible with the supposition that pleasure is a mere criterion of what is right ; . . .91 55. and in his first, the appeal to reflective intuition, he fails to put the question clearly (1) in that he does not recognise the principle of organic unities ; . . . . . . .92 56. and (2) in that he fails to emphasize that the agreement, which he has tried to shew, between hedonistic judgments and those of Common Sense, only holds of judgments of means : hedonistic judgments of ends are flagrantly paradoxical. . 94 57. I conclude, then, that a reflective intuition, if proper precau- tions are taken, will agree with Common Sense that it is absurd to regard mere consciousness of pleasure as the sole good. ... . .... 95 C. 58. It remains to consider Egoism and Utilitarianism It is im- portant to distinguish the former, as the doctrine that ‘ my own pleasure is sole good,’ from the doctrine, opposed to Altruism, that to pursue my own pleasure exclusively is right as a means. . . ....... 96 59. Egoism proper is utterly untenable, being self-contradictory : it fails to perceive that when I declare a thing to be my own good, I must be declaring it to be good absolutely or else not good at all 97 CONTENTS xviii SECT. PAGE 60. This confusion is further brought out by an examination of Prof. Sidgwick’s contrary view ; . . . . . .99 61. and it is shewn that, in consequence of this confusion, his representation of ‘the relation of Rational Egoism to Rational Benevolence’ as ‘the profoundest problem of Ethics,’ and his view that a certain hypothesis is required to ‘make Ethics rational,’ are grossly erroneous. . . . . . .102 62. The same confusion is involved in the attempt to infer Utilitarianism from Psychological Hedonism, as commonly held, e.g. by Mill . . .104 63. Egoism proper seems also to owe its plausibility to its confusion with Egoism, as a doctrine of means. ... . 105 64. Certain ambiguities in the conception of Utilitarianism are noticed; and it is pointed out (1) that, as a doctrine of the end to be pursued, it is finally refuted by the refutation of Hedonism, and (2) that, while the arguments most commonly urged in its favour could, at most, only shew it to offer a correct criterion of right action, they are quite insufficient even for this purpose. ........ 105 65. Summary of chapter. 108 CHAPTER IV. METAPHYSICAL ETHICS. A. 66. The term ‘metaphysical’ is defined as having reference primarily to any object of knowledge which is not a part of Nature — does not exist in time, as an object of perception ; but since metaphysicians, not content with pointing out the truth about such entities, have always supposed that what does not exist in Nature, must, at least, exist, the term also has reference to a supposed ‘ supersensible reality ’ ; . .110 67. and by ‘metaphysical Ethics’ I mean those systems which maintain or imply that the answer to the question ‘What is good V logically defends upon the answer to the question ‘What is the nature of supersensible reality?.’ All such systems obviously involve the same fallacy — the ‘ naturalistic fallacy’ — by the use of which Naturalism was also defined. . 113 68. Metaphysics, as dealing with a ‘supersensible reality,’ may have a bearing upon practical Ethics (1) if its supersensible reality is conceived as something future, which our actions CONTENTS XIX SECT. PAGE can affect; and (2) since it will prove that every proposition of practical Ethics is false, if it can shew that an eternal reality is either the only real thing or the only good thing. Most metaphysical writers, believing in a reality of the latter kind, do thus imply the complete falsehood of every practical proposition, although they fail to see that their Metaphysics thus contradicts their Ethics. . . .115 B. 69. But the theory, by which I have defined Metaphysical Ethics, is not that Metaphysics has a logical bearing upon the question involved in practical Ethics ‘What efiects will my action produce but that it has such a bearing upon the . funda- mental ethical question ‘What is good in itself?.’ This theory has been refuted by the proof, in Chap. I, that the naturalistic fallacy is a fallacy : it only remains to discuss certain confusions which seem to have lent it plausibility. . 118 70. One such source of confusion seems to lie in the failure to dis- tinguish between the proposition ‘This is good,’ when it means ‘This coasting thing is good,’ and the same proposition, when it means ‘The existence of this kind of thing would be good’; 118 71. and another seems to lie in the failure to distinguish between that which suggests a truth, or is a cause of our knowing it, and that upon which it logically depends, or which is a reason for believing it; in the former sense fiction has a more important bearing upon Ethics than Metaphysics can have. 121 C. 72. But a more important source of confusion seems to lie in the supposition that ‘to be good’ is identical with the possession of some supersensible property, which is also involved in the definition of ‘reality.’ 122 73. One cause of this supposition seems to be the logical prejudice that aU propositions are of the most familiar type — that in which subject and predicate are both existents. . . .123 74. But ethical propositions cannot be reduced to this type: in particular, they are obviously to be distinguished . . 125 75. (1) from Natural Laws; with which one of Kant’s most famous doctrines confuses them, . 126 73. and (21 from Commands ; with which they are confused both by Kant and by others 127 XX CONTENTS D. SECT. 77. This latter confusion is one of the sources of the prevalent modern doctrine that ‘being good’ is identical with ‘being willed’; but the prevalence of this doctrine seems to be chiefly due to other causes. I shall try to shew with regard to it (1) what are the chief errors which seem to have led to its adoption ; and (2) that, apart from it, the Metaphysics of Volition can hardly have the smallest logical bearing upon Ethics. ........... 78 . (1) It has been commonly held, since Kant, that ‘goodness’ has the same relation to Will or Feeling, which ‘truth’ or ‘reality’ has to Cognition: that the proper method for Ethics is to discover what is implied in Will or Feeling, just as, according to Kant, the proper method for Metaphysics was to discover what is implied in Cognition. 79. The actual relations between ‘goodness’ and Will or Feeling, from which this false doctrine is inferred, seem to be mainly (a) the causal relation consisting in the fact that it is only by reflection upon the experiences of Will and Feeling that we become aware of ethical distinctions ; (b) the facts that a cognition of goodness is perhaps always included in certain kinds of Willing and Feeling, and is accompanied by them : 80 . but from neither of these psychological facts does it follow that ‘to be good’ is identical with being wiUed or felt in a certain way . the supposition that it does follow is an instance of the fundamental contradiction of modei-n Episte- mology — the contradiction involved in both distinguishing and identifying the object and the act of Thought, ‘truth’ itself and its supposed criterion'. ..... 81 . and, once this analogy between Volition and Cognition is accepted, the view that ethical propositions have an essential reference to Will or Feeling, is strengthened by another error with regard to the nature of Cognition — the error of supposing that ‘perception’ denotes merely a certain way of cognising an object, whereas it actually includes the assertion that the object is also true. ....... 82 . The argument of the last three §§ is recapitulated ; and it is pointed out (1) that Volition and Feeling are not analogous to Cognition, (2) that, even if they were, still ‘to be good’ could not mean ‘to be willed or felt in a certain way.’ . 83 . (2) If ‘being good’ and ‘being willed’ are not identical., then the latter could only be a criterion of the former; and, in PAGE 123 129 130 131 133 135 CONTENTS XXI SECT. PAGE order to shew that it was so, we should have to establish indeipendenily that many things were good — that is to say, we should have to establish most of our ethical conclusions, before the Metaphysics of Volition could possibly give us the smallest assistance. ........ 137 84. The fact that the metaphysical writers who, like Green, attempt to base Ethics on Volition, do not even attempt this in- dependent investigation, shews that they start from the false assumption that goodness is identical with being willed, and hence that their ethical reasonings have no value what- soever 138 85. Summary of chapter. 139 CHAPTER V. ETHICS IN RELATION TO CONDUCT. 88. The question to be discussed in this chapter must be clearly distinguished from the two questions hitherto discussed, namely (1) What is the nature of the proposition: ‘This is good in itself’? ......... 142 87. and (2) What things are good in themselves ? to which we gave one answer in deciding that pleasure was not the only thing good in itself. 144 88. In this chapter we shall deal with the third object of ethical enquiry: namely answers to the question ‘What conduct is a means to good results ?’ or ‘What ought we to do ?’ This is the question of Practical Ethics, and its answer involves an assertion of causal connection. ..... 146 89. It is shewn that the assertions ‘This action is right’ or ‘is my duty ’ are equivalent to the assertion that the total results of the action in question will be the best possible ; . . . 146 90. and the rest of the chapter will deal with certain conclusions, upon which light is thrown by this fact. Of which the first is (1) that Intuitionism is mistaken; since no proposition with regard to duty can be self-evident. . . . .148 91. (2) It is plain that we cannot hope to prove which among all the actions, which it is possible for us to perform on every occasion, will produce the best total results : to discover what is our ‘duty,’ in this strict sense, is impossible. It may, however, be possible to shew which among the actions, which we are likelij to perform, will produce the best results. 149 xxii CONTENTS SECT. 92. The distinction made in the last § is further explained ; and it is insisted that all that Ethics has done or can do, is, not to determine absolute duties, but to point out which, among a few of the alternatives, possible under certain circumstances, will have the better results 93. (3) Even this latter task is immensely difficult, and no adequate proof that the total results of one action are superior to those of another, has ever been given. For (a) we can only calculate actual results within a comparatively near future : we must, therefore, assume that no results of the same action in the infinite future beyond, will reverse the balance — an assumption which perhaps can be, but certainly has not been, justified ; ...... 94. and (6) even to decide that, of any two actions, one has a better total result than the other in the immediate future, is very difficult ; and it is very improbable, and quite impossible to prove, that any single action is in all cases better as means than its probable alternative. Rules of duty, even in this restricted sense, can only, at most, be general truths. . 95. But (c) most of the actions, most universally approved by Common Sense, may perhaps be shewn to be generally better as means than any probable alternative, on the follow- ing principles. (1) With regard to some rules it may be shewn that their general observance would be useful in any state of society, whei'e the instincts to preserve and propa- gate life and to possess property were as strong as they seem always to be ; and this utility may be shewn, independently of a right view as to what is good in itself, since the observ- ance is a means to things which are a necessary condition for the attainment of any great goods in considerable quantities 96. (2) Other rules are such that their general observance can only be shewn to be useful, as means to the preservation of society, under more or less temporary conditions ; if any of these are to be proved useful in all societies, this can only be done by shewing their causal relation to things good or evil in themselves, which are not generally recognised to be such. 97. It is plain that rules of class (1) may also be justified by the existence of such temporary conditions as justify those of class (2) ; and among such temporary conditions must be reckoned the so-called sanctions. 98. In this way, then, it may be possible to prove the general utility, for the present, of those actions, which in our society PAGE 150 152 154 155 158 159 CONTENTS XXlll seOT. 99. 100 . 101 . 102 . 103 . PAGE are both generally recognised as duties and generally prac- tised ; but it seems very doubtful whether a conclusive case can be established for any proposed change in social custom, without an independent investigation of what things are good or bad in themselves 159 And (d) if we consider the distinct question of how a single individual should decide to act (a) in cases where the general utility of the action in question is certain, (j8) in other cases : there seems reason for thinking that, with regard to (a), where the generally useful rule is also generally observed, he should always conform to it; but these reasons are not conclusive, if either the general observance or the general utility is wanting : ........ 162 and that (;8) in all other cases, rules of action should not be followed at all, but the individual should consider what positive goods, Ae, in his particular circumstances, seems likely to be able to effect, and what evils to avoid. . . 164 (4) It follows further that the distinction denoted by the terms ‘duty’ and ‘expediency’ is not primarily ethical : when we ask ‘Is this really expedient?’ we are asking pre- cisely the same question as when we ask ‘Is this my duty ?,’ viz. ‘Is this a means to the best possible?.’ ‘Duties’ are mainly distinguished by the non-ethical marks (1) that many people are often tempted to avoid them, (2) that their most prominent effects are on others than the agent, (3) that they excite the moral sentiments : so far as they are distinguished by an ethical peculiarity, this is not that they are peculiarly useful to perform, but that they are peculiarly useful to sanction. 167 The distinction between ‘duty’ and ‘interest’ is also, in the main, the same non-ethical distinction ; but the term ‘interested’ does also refer to a distinct ethical predicate — that an action is to ‘my interest’ asserts only that it will have the best possible effects of one particular kind, not that its total effects will be the best possible. . . . .170 (5) . We may further see that ‘virtues’ are not to be defined as dispositions that are good in themselves : they are not necessarily more than dispositions to perform actions gener- ally good as means, and of these, for the most part, only those classed as ‘duties’ in accordance with section (4). It follows that to decide whether a disposition is or is not ‘ virtuous ’ involves the difficult causal investigation dis- cussed in section (3) \ and that what is a virtue in one state of society may not be so in another 171 XXIV CONTENTS SECT. PAOB 104. It follows also that we have no reason to presume, as has commonly been done, that the exercise of virtue in the per- formance of ‘duties’ is ever good in itself — far less, that it IS the sole good; 173 105. and, if we consider the intrinsic value of such exercise, it will appear (1) that, in most cases, it has no value, and (2) that even the cases, where it has some value, are far from con- stituting the sole good. The truth of the latter proposition is generally inconsistently implied, even by those who deny it; 174 106. but in order fairly to decide upon the intrinsic value of virtue, we must distinguish three different kinds of disposition, each of which IS commonly so called and has been maintained to be the only kind deserving the name. Thus (a) the mere unconscious ‘habit’ of performing duties, which is the com- monest type, has no intrinsic value whatsoever; Christian moralists are right in implying that mere ‘ external rightness’ has no intrinsic value, though they are wrong in saying that it is therefore not ‘virtuous,’ since this implies that it has no value even as a means: . . . . . . .175 107. (b) where virtue consists in a disposition to have, and be moved by, a sentiment of love towards really good con- sequences of an action and of hatred towards really evil ones, it has some intrinsic value, but its value may vary greatly in degree : 177 108. finally (c) where virtue consists in ‘conscientiousness,’ i.e. the disposition not to act, in certain cases, until we believe and feel that our action is right, it seems to have some intrinsic value ; the value of this feeling has been peculiarly empha- sized by Christian Ethics, but it certainly is not, as Kant would lead us to think, either the sole thing of value, or always good even as a means 178 109. Summary of chapter. . .180 CHAPTER VI. THE IDEAL. 110. By an ‘ideal’ state of things may be meant either (1) the Summum Bonum or absolutely best, or (2) the best which the laws of nature allow to exist in this world, or (3) any- thing greatly good in itself : this chapter will be principally occupied with what is ideal in sense (3) — with answering the fundamental question of Ethics ; 183 CONTENTS y XXV SECT. FAQE 111. but a correct answer to this question is an es.sential step towards a correct view as to what is ‘ideal’ in senses (1) 112. In order to obtain a correct answer to the question ‘ What is good in itself?’ we must consider what value things would have if they existed absolutely by themselves ; . . .187 113. and, if we use this method, it is obvious that personal affection and aesthetic enjoyments include by far the greatest goods with which we are acquainted. . . . . . .188 114. If we begin by considering I. Aesthetic Enjoyments, it is plain (1) that there is always essential to these some one of a great variety of different emotions, though these emotions may have little value hy themselves : 189 115. and (2) that a cognition of really beautiful qualities is equally essential, and has equally little value by itself. . . . 190 116. But (3) granted that the appropriate combination of these two elements is always a considerable good and may be a very gi’eat one, we may ask whether, where there is added to this a true belief in the existence of the object of the cognition, the whole thus formed is not much more valuable still. . . 192 117. I think that this question should be answered in the afhrma- tive ; but in order to ensure that this judgment is correct, we must carefully distinguish it 194 118. from the two judgments (a) that knowledge is valuable as a means, (b) that, where the object of the cognition is itself a good thing, its existence, of course, adds to the value of the 119. if, however, we attempt to avoid being biassed by these two facts, it stiU seems that mere true behef may be a con- dition essential to great value 197 120. We thus get a third essential constituent of many great goods ; and in this way we are able to justify (1) the attribution of value to knowledge, over and above its value as a means, and (2) the intrinsic superiority of the proper appreciation of a real object over the appreciation of an equally valuable object of mere imagination : emotions directed towards real objects may thus, even if the object be inferior, claim equality with the highest imaginative pleasures. . .198 121. Finally (4) with regard to the objects of the cognition which is essential to these good wholes, it is the business of Aesthetics to analyse their nature : it need only be here remarked (1) that, by calling them ‘beautiful,’ we mean that they have this relation to a good whole ; and (2) that they are, for the most part, themselves complex wholes, such that the ad- and (2). . 184 whole state of things : 195 XXVI CONTENTS SBCT. PAGP miring contemplation of the whole greatly exceeds in value the sum of the values of the admiring contemplation of the parts 200 122. With regard to II. Personal Affection, the object is here not merely beautiful but also good in itself ; it appears, however, that the appreciation of what is thus good in itself, viz. the mental qualities of a person, is certainly, by itself, not so great a good as the whole formed by the combination with it of an appreciation of corporeal beauty ; it is doubtful whether it is even so great a good as the mere appreciation of corporeal beauty ; but it is certain that the combination of both is a far greater good than either singly. . . . 203 123. It follows from what has been said that we have every reason to suppose that a cognition of material qualities, and even their existence, is an essential constituent of the Ideal or Summum Bonum : there is only a bare possibility that they are not included in it 205 124. It remains to consider positive evils and mixed goods. I. Evils may be divided into three classes, namely .... 207 125. (1) evils which consist in the love, or admiration, or enjoy- ment of what is evil or ugly 208 126. (2) evils which consist in the hatred or contempt of what is good or beautiful 211 127. and (3) the consciousness of intense pain : this appears to be the only thing, either greatly good or greatly evil, which does not involve both a cognition and an emotion directed towards its object ; and hence it is not analogous to pleasure in respect of its intrinsic value, while it also seems not to add to the vileness of a whole, as a whole, in which it is combined with another bad thing, whereas pleasure does add to the goodness of a whole, in which it is combined with another good thing ; . . 212 128. but pleasure and pain are completely analogous in this, that pleasure by no means always increases, and pain by no means always decreases, the total value of a whole in which it is included : the converse is often true 213 129. In order to consider II. Mixed Goods, we must first distinguish between (1) the value of a whole as a whole, and (2) its value on the whole or total value: (l) = the difference between (2) and the sum of the values of the parts. In view of this dis- tinction, it then appears : 214 130. (1) That the mere combination of two or more evils is never positively good on the whole, although it may certainly have great intrinsic value as a whole ; . . . . , .216 CONTENTS XXVll SECT. 131. but (2) That a whole which includes a cognition of something evil or ugly may yet be a great positive good on the whole : most virtues, which have any intrinsic value whatever, seem to be of this kind, e.g. (a) courage and compassion, and {h) moral goodness ; all these are instances of the hatred or contempt of what is evil or ugly ; 132. but there seems no reason to think that, where the evil object exists, the total state of things is ever positively good on the whole, although the existence of the evil may add to its value as a whole. 133. Hence (1) no actually existing evil is necessary to the Ideal, (2) the contemplation of imaginary evils is necessary to it, and (3) where evils already exist, the existence of mixed virtues has a value independent both of its consequences and of the value which it has in common with the proper appreciation of imaginary evils 134. Concluding remarks. 135. Summary of chapter Fias 216 219 220 222 224 CHAPTER T. THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF ETHICS, 1. It is very easy to point out some among our every-day judgments, with the truth of which Ethics is undoubtedly concerned. Whenever we say, ‘So and so is a good man,’ or ‘That fellow is a villain’; whenever we ask, ‘What ought I to do?’ or ‘Is it wrong for me to do like this?’; whenever we hazard such remarks as ‘Temperance is a virtue and drunken- ness a vice’ — it is undoubtedly the business of Ethics to discuss such questions and such statements; to argue what is the true answer when we ask what it is right to do, and to give reasons for thinking that our statements about the character of persons or the morality of actions are true or false. In the vast majority of cases, where we make statements involving any of the terms ‘virtue,’ ‘vice,’ ‘duty,’ ‘right,’ ‘ought,’ ‘good,’ ‘bad,’ we are making ethical judgments; and if we wish to discuss their truth, we shall be discussing a point of Ethics. So much as this is not disputed; but it falls very far short of defining the province of Ethics. That province may indeed be defined as the whole truth about that which is at the same time common to all such judgments and peculiar to them. But we have still to ask the question: What is it that is thus common and peculiar? And this is a question to which very different answers have been given by ethical philosophers of acknowledged reputation, and none of them, perhaps, completely satisfactory. 2. If we take such examples as those given above, we shall not be far wrong in saying that they are all of them concerned 2 THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF ETHICS [chap. with the question of ‘conduct’ — with the question, what, in the conduct of us, human beings, is good, and what is bad, what is right, and what is wrong. For when we say that a man is good, we commonly mean that he acts rightly; when we say that drunkenness is a vice, we commonly mean that to get drunk is a wrong or wicked action. And this discussion of human con- duct is, in fact, that with which the name ‘Ethics’ is most intimately associated. It is so associated by derivation; and conduct is undoubtedly by far the commonest and most generally interesting object of ethical judgments. Accordingly, we find that many ethical philosophers are disposed to accept as an adequate definition of ‘Ethics’ the statement that it deals with the question what is good or bad in human conduct. They hold that its enquiries are properly confined to ‘conduct’ or to ‘practice’; they hold that the name ‘practical philosophy’ covers all the matter with which it has to do. Now, without discussing the proper meaning of the word (for verbal questions are properly left to the writers of dictionaries and other persons interested in literature; philo- sophy, as we shall see, has no concern with them), I may say that I intend to use ‘Ethics’ to cover more than this — a usage, for which there is, I think, quite sufficient authority. I am using it to cover an enquiry for which, at all events, there is no other word: the general enquiry into what is good. Ethics is undoubtedly concerned with the question what good conduct is; but, being concerned with this, it obviously does not start at the beginning, unless it is prepared to tell us what is good as well as what is conduct. For ‘good conduct’ is a complex notion : all conduct is not good ; for some is certainly bad and some may be indifferent. And on the other hand, other things, beside conduct, may be good ; and if they are so, then, ‘good’ denotes some property, that is common to them and conduct; and if we examine good conduct alone of all good things, then we shall be in danger of mistaking for this property, some property which is not shared by those other things : and thus we shall have made a mistake about Ethics even in this limited sense; for we shall not know what good conduct really is. This IS a mistake which many writers have actually made. l] THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF ETHICS 3 from limiting their enquiry to conduct. And hence I shall try to avoid it by considering first what is good in general; hoping, that if we can arrive at any certainty about this, it will be much easier to settle the question of good conduct: for we all know pretty well what ‘conduct’ is. This, then, is our first question: What is good ? and What is bad ? and to the discussion of this question (or these questions) I give the name of Ethics, since that science must, at all events, include it. 3. But this is a question which may have many meanings. If, for example, each of us were to say ‘I am doing good now’ or ‘I had a good dinner yesterday,’ these statements would each of them be some sort of answer to our question, although perhaps a false one. So, too, when A asks B what school he ought to send his son to, B’s answer will certainly be an ethical judgment. And similarly all distribution of praise or blame to any personage or thing that has existed, now exists, or will exist, does give some answer to the question ‘ What is good ? ’ In all such cases some particular thing is judged to be good or bad: the question ‘What?’ is answered by ‘This.’ But this is not the sense in which a scientific Ethics asks the question. Not one, of all the many million answers of this kind, which must be true, can form a part of an ethical system ; although that science must contain reasons and principles sufficient for deciding on the truth of all of them. There are far too many persons, things and events in the world, past, present, or to come, for a dis- cussion of their individual merits to be embraced in any science. Ethics, therefore, does not deal at all with facts of this nature, facts that are unique, individual, absolutely particular; facts with which such studies as history, geography, astronomy, are compelled, in part at least, to deal. And, for this reason, it is not the business of the ethical philosopher to give personal advice or exhortation. 4. But there is another meaning which may be given to the question ‘What is good?’ ‘Books are good’ would be an answer to it, though an answer obviously false; for some books are very bad indeed. And ethical judgments of this kind do indeed belong to Ethics; though I shall not deal with many of them. Such is the judgment ‘Pleasure is good’ — a judgment, 4 THE SUBJECT-MATTEE OF ETHICS [chap. of which Ethics should discuss the truth, although it is not nearly as important as that other judgment, with which we shall be much occupied presently — ‘Pleasure alone is good.’ It is judgments of this sort, which are made in such books on Ethics as contain a list of ‘virtues’ — in Aristotle’s ‘Ethics’ for example. But it is judgments of precisely the same kind, which form the substance of what is commonly supposed to be a study different from Ethics, and one much less respectable — the study of Casuistry. We may be told that Casuistry differs from Ethics, in that it is much more detailed and particular. Ethics much more general. But it is most important to notice that Casuistry does not deal with anything that is absolutely particular — particular in the only sense in which a perfectly precise line can be drawn between it and what is general. It is not particular in the sense just noticed, the sense in which this book is a particular book, and A’s friend’s advice particular advice. Casuistry may indeed be more particular and Ethics more general; but that means that they differ only in degree and not in kind. And this is universally true of ‘particular’ and ‘general,’ when used in this common, but inaccurate, sense. So far as Ethics allows itself to give lists of virtues or even to name constituents of the Ideal, it is indistinguishable from Casuistry. Both alike deal with what is general, in the sense in which physics and chemistry deal with what is general. Just as chemistry aims at discovering what are the properties of oxygen, wherever it occurs, and not only of this or that particular speci- men of oxygen; so Casuistry aims at discovering what actions are good, whenever they occur. In this respect Ethics and Casuistry alike are to be classed with such sciences as physics, chemistry and physiology, in their absolute distinction from those of which history and geography are instances. And it is to be noted that, owing to their detailed nature, casuistical in- vestigations are actually nearer to physics and to chemistry than are the investigations usually assigned to Ethics. For just as physics cannot rest content with the discovery that light is propagated by waves of ether, but must go on to discover the particular nature of the ether-waves corresponding to each several colour; so Casuistry, not content with the general law I] THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF ETHICS 5 that charity is a virtue must attempt to discover the relative merits of every different form of charity. Casuistry forms, therefore, part of the ideal of ethical science: Ethics cannot be complete without it. The defects of Casuistry are not defects of principle; no objection can be taken to its aim and object. It has failed only because it is far too difficult a subject to be treated adequately in our present state of knowledge. The casuist has been unable to distinguish, in the cases which he treats, those elements upon which their value depends. Hence he often thinks two cases to be alike in respect of value, when in reality they are alike only in some other respect. It is to mistakes of this kind that the pernicious influence of such investigations has been due. For Casuistry is the goal of ethical investigation. It cannot be safely attempted at the beginning of our studies, but only at the end. 5. But our question ‘ What is good? ’ may have still another meaning. We may, in the third place, mean to ask, not what thing or things are good, but how ‘good’ is to be defined. This is an enquiry which belongs only to Ethics, not to Casuistry; and this is the enquiry which will occupy us first. It is an enquiry to which most special attention should be directed; since this question, how ‘good’ is to be defined, is the most fundamental question in all Ethics. That which is meant by ‘good’ is, in fact, except its converse ‘bad,’ the only simple object of thought which is peculiar to Ethics. Its definition is, therefore, the most essential point in the definition of Ethics; and moreover a mistake with regard to it entails a far larger number of erroneous ethical judgments than any other. Unless this first question be fully understood, and its true answer clearly recognised, the rest of Ethics is as good as useless from the point of view of systematic knowledge. True ethical judgments, of the two kinds last dealt with, may indeed be made by those who do not know the answer to this question as well as by those who do; and it goes without saying that the two classes of people may lead equally good lives. But it is extremely unlikely that the most general ethical judgments will be equally valid, in the absence of a true answer to this question: I shall presently try to shew that the gravest errors have been largely due to 3 M 6 THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF ETHICS [chap. beliefs in a false answer. And, in any case, it is impossible that, till the answer to this question be known, any one should know wJiat is the evidence for any ethical judgment whatsoever. But the main object of Ethics, as a systematic science, is to give correct reasons for thinking that this or that is good; and, unless this question be answered, such reasons cannot be given. Even, therefore, apart from the fact that a false answer leads to false conclusions, the present enquiry is a most necessary and important part of the science of Ethics. 6. What, then, is good? How is good to be defined? Now, it may be thought that this is a verbal question. A definition does indeed often mean the expressing of one word’s meaning in other words. But this is not the sort of definition I am asking for. Such a definition can never be of ultimate impor- tance in any study except lexicography. If I wanted that kind of definition I should have to consider in the first place how people generally used the word ‘good’; but my business is not with its proper usage, as established by custom. I should, in- deed, be foolish, if I tried to use it for something which it did not usually denote: if, for instance, I were to announce that, whenever I used the word ‘good,’ I must be understood to be thinking of that object which is usually denoted by the word ‘table.’ I shall, therefore, use the word in the sense in which I think it is ordinarily used; but at the same time I am not anxious to discuss whether I am right in thinking that it is so used. My business is solely with that object or idea, which I hold, rightly or wrongly, that the word is generally used to stand for. What I want to discover is the nature of that object or idea, and about this I am extremely anxious to arrive at an agreement. But, if we understand the question in this sense, my answer to it may seem a very disappointing one. If I am asked ‘What is good?’ my answer is that good is good, and that is the end of the matter. Or if I am asked ‘How is good to be defined?’ my answer is that it cannot be defined, and that is all I have to say about it. But disappointing as these answers may appear, they are of the very last importance. To readers who are familiar with philosophic terminology, I can express their im- I] THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF ETHICS 7 portance by saying that they amount to this : That propositions about the good are all of them synthetic and never analytic; and that is plainly no trivial matter. And the same thing may be expressed more popularly, by saying that, if I am right, then nobody can foist upon us such an axiom as that ‘ Pleasure is the only good’ or that ‘The good is the desired’ on the pretence that this is ‘ the very meaning of the word.’ 7. Let us, then, consider this position. Wy point is that ‘good’ is a simple notion, just as ‘yellow’ is a simple notion; that, just as you cannot, by any manner of means, explain to any one who does not already know it, what yellow is, so you cannot explain what good is. Definitions of the kind that I was asking for, definitions which describe the real nature of the object or notion denoted by a word, and which do not merely tell us what the word is used to mean, are only possible when the object or notion in question is something compl ex^ You can give a definition of a horse, because a horse has many different properties and qualities, all of which you can enume- rate. But when you have enumerated them all, when you have reduced a horse to his simplest terms, then you can no longer define those terms. They are simply something which you think of or perceive, and to any one who cannot think of or perceive them, you can never, by any definition, make their nature known. It may perhaps be objected to this that we are able to describe to others, objects which they have never seen or thought of. We can, for instance, make a man understand what a chimaera is, although he has never heard of one or seen one. You can tell him that it is an animal with a lioness’s head and body, with a goat’s head growing from the middle of its back, and with a snake in place of a tail. But here the object which you are describing is a complex object; it is entirely composed of parts, with which we are all perfectly familiar — a snake, a goat, a lioness; and we know, too, the manner in which those parts are to be put together, because we know what is meant by the middle of a lioness’s back, and where her tail is wont to grow. And so it is with all objects, not previously known, which we are able to define: they are all complex; all composed of parts, which may themselves, in the 8 THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF ETHICS [chap. first instance, be capable of similar definition, but which must in the end be reducible to simplest parts, which can no longer be defined. But yellow and good, we say, are not complex: they are notions of that simple kind, out of which definitions are composed and with which the power of further defining ceases. 8. When we say, as Webster says, ‘The definition of horse is “A hoofed quadruped of the genus Equus,’” we may, in fact, mean three different things. (1) We may mean merely: ‘When I say “horse,” you are to understand that I am talking about a hoofed quadruped of the genus Equus.’ This might be called the arbitrary verbal definition: and I do not mean that good is indefinable in that sense. (2) We may mean, as Webster ought to mean: ‘When most English people say “horse,” they mean a hoofed quadruped of the genus Equus.’ This may be called the verbal definition proper, and I do not say that good is indefinable in this sense either; for it is certainly possible to discover how people use a word: otherwise, we could never have known that ‘good’ may be translated by ‘gut’ in German and by ‘bon’ in French. But (3) we may, when we define horse, mean something much more important. We may mean that a certain object, which we all of us know, is composed in a certain manner: that it has four legs, a head, a heart, a liver, etc., etc., all of them arranged in definite relations to one another. It is in this sense that I deny good to be definable. I say that it is not composed of any parts, which we can sub- stitute for it in our minds when we are thinking of it. We might think just as clearly and correctly about a horse, if we thought of all its parts and their arrangement instead of thinking of the whole: we could, I say, think how a horse differed from a donkey just as well, just as truly, in this way, as now we do, only not so easily; but there is nothing whatsoever which we could so substitute for good; and that is what I mean, when I say that good is indefinable. 9. But I am afraid I have still not removed the chief difficulty which may prevent acceptance of the proposition that good is indefinable. I do not mean to say that the good, that which is good, is thus indefinable; if I did think so, I should not I] THE SUBJECT-MATTEE OF ETHICS 9 be writing on Ethics, for my main object is to help towards discovering that definition. It is just because I think there will be less risk of error in our search for a definition of ‘ the good,’ that I am now insisting that good is indefinable. I must try to explain the difference between these two. I suppose it may be granted that ‘good’ is an adjective. Well ‘the good, ‘that which is good,’ must therefore be the substantive to which the adjective ‘good’ will apply; it must be the whole of that to which the adjective will apply, and the adjective must always truly apply to it. But if it is that to which the adjective will apply, it must be something different from that adjective itself; and the whole of that something different, whatever it is, will be our definition of the good. Now it may be that this some- thing will have other adjectives, beside ‘good,’ that will apply to it. It may be full of pleasure, for example; it may be intelligent: and if these two adjectives are really part of its definition, then it will certainly be true, that pleasure and in- telligence are good. And many people appear to think that, if we say ‘Pleasure and intelligence are good,’ or if we say ‘Only pleasure and intelligence are good,’ we are defining ‘good.’ Well, I cannot deny that propositions of this nature may some- times be called definitions; I do not know well enough how the word is generally used to decide upon this point. I only wish it to be understood that that is not what I mean when I say there is no possible definition of good, and that I shall not mean this if I use the word again. I do most fully believe that some true proposition of the form ‘Intelligence is good and intelligence alone is good’ can be found; if none could be found, our definition of the good would be impossible. As it is. I believe the good to be definable; and yet I still say that good itself is indefinable. 10. ‘Good,’ then, if we mean by it that quality which we assert to belong to a thing, when we say that the thing is good, is incapable of any definition, in the most important sense of that word. The most imp orta nt sense of ‘d cfiniti nn’ ig t.Vigf. fn which a definition states what are the parts which invariably compose^ a certain whole; and in this sense ‘good’ has no definition because it Is silnpre and has no parts. It is one of 10 THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF ETHICS [CHAP. those innumerable objects of thought which are themselves incapable of definition, because they are the ultimate terms by reference to which whatever is capable of definition must be defined. That there must be an indefinite number of such terms is obvious, on reflection; since we cannot define anything except by an analysis, which, when carried as far as it will go, refers us to something, which is simply different from anything else, and which by that ultimate difference explains the pecu- liarity of the whole which we are defining; for every whole contains some parts which are common to other wholes also. There is, therefore, no intrinsic difficulty in the contention that ‘good’ denotes a simple and indefinable quality. There are many other instances of such qualities. Consider yellow, for example. We may try to define it, by describing its physical equivalent; we may state what kind of light-vibrations must stimulate the normal eye, in order that we may perceive it. But a moment’s reflection is sufficient to shew that those light-vibrations are not themselves what we mean by yellow. They are not what we perceive. Indeed we should never have been able to discover their existence, unless we had first been struck by the patent difference of quality between the different colours. The most we can be entitled to say of those vibrations is that they are what corresponds in space to the yellow which we actually perceive. Yet a mistake of this simple kind has commonly been made about ‘good.’ It may be true that all things which are good are also something else, just as it is true that all things which are yellow produce a certain kind of vibration in the light. And it is a fact, that Ethics aims at discovering what are those other properties belonging to all things which are good. But far too many philosophers have thought that when they named those other properties they were actually' defiTning^ood; that these properties, in fact, were simply not ‘other,’ but absolutely and entirely the same with goodness. This view I propose to call the ‘naturalistic fallacy’ and of it I shall now endeavour to dispose. 11 . Let us consider what it is such philosophers say. And first it is to be noticed that they do not agree among themselves. I] THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF ETHICS 11 They not only say that they are right as to what good is, but they endeavour to prove that other people who say that it is something else, are wrong. One, for instance, will affirm that good is pleasure, another, perhaps, that good is that which is desired ; and each of these will argue eagerly to prove that the other is wrong. But how is that possible? One of them says that good is nothing but the object of desire, and at the same time tries to prove that it is not pleasure. But from his first assertion, that good just means the object of desire, one of two things must follow as regards his proof: (1) He may be trying to prove that the object of desire is not pleasure. But, if this be all, where is his Ethics? The position he is maintaining is merely a psychological one. Desire is something which occurs in our minds, and pleasure is some- thing else which so occurs; and our would-be ethical philosopher is merely holding that the latter is not the object of the former. But what has that to do with the question in dispute? His opponent held the ethical proposition that pleasure was the good, and although he should prove a million times over the psychological proposition that pleasure is not the obj ect of desire, he is no nearer proving his opponent to be wrong. The position is like this. One man says a triangle is a circle : another replies ‘A triangle is a straight line, and I will prove to you that I am right: for’ (this is the only argument) ‘a straight line is not a circle.’ ‘That is quite true,’ the other may reply; ‘but never- theless a triangle is a circle, and you have said nothing whatever to prove the contrary. What is proved is that one of us is wrong, for 'we agree that a triangle cannot be both a straight line and a circle: but which is wrong, there can be no earthly means of proving, since you define triangle as straight line and I define it as circle.’ — Well, that is one alternative which any naturalistic Ethics has to face; if good is defined as something else, it is then impossible either to prove that any other definition is wrong or even to deny such definition. (2) The other alternative will scarcely be more welcome. It is that the discussion is after all a verbal one. When A says ‘Good means pleasant’ and B says ‘Good means desired,’ they may merely wish to assert that most people have used the word 12 THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF ETHICS [CHAP. for what is pleasant and for what is desired respectively. And this is quite an interesting subject for discussion: only it is not a whit more an ethical discussion than the last was. Nor do I think that any exponent of naturalistic Ethics would be willing to allow that this was all he meant. They are all so anxious to persuade us that what they call the good is what we really ought to do. ‘Do, pray, act so, because the word “good” is generally used to denote actions of this nature’: such, on this view, would be the substance of their teaching. And in so far as they tell us how we ought to act, their teaching is truly ethical, as they mean it to be. But how perfectly absurd is the reason they would give for it! ‘You are to do this, because most people use a certain word to denote conduct such as this.’ ‘You are to say the thing which is not, because most people call it lying.’ That is an argument just as good! — My dear sirs, what we want to know' from you as ethical teachers, is not how people use a word; it is not even, what kind of actions they approve, which the use of this word ‘good’ may certainly imply: what we want to know is simply what is good. We may indeed agree that what most people do think good, is actually so; we shall at all events be glad to know their opinions: but when we say their opinions about what is good, we do mean what we say; we do not care whether they call that thing which they mean ‘horse’ or ‘table’ or ‘chair,’ ‘gut’ or ‘bon’ or ‘aya^d?’; we want to know what it is that they so call. When they say ‘Pleasure is good,’ we cannot believe that they merely mean ‘Pleasure is pleasure’ and nothing more than that. 12. p Suppose a man says ‘I am pleased’; and suppose that is not a lie or a mistake but the truth. Well, if it is true, what does that mean? It means that his mind, a certain definite mind, distinguished by certain definite marks from all othei’s, has at this moment a certain definite feeling called pleasure. ‘Pleased’ means nothing but having pleasure, and though we may be more pleased or less pleased, and even, we may admit for the present, have one or another kind of pleasure; yet in so far as it is pleasure we have, whether there be more or less of it, and whether it be of one kind or another, what we have is I] THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF ETHICS 13 one definite thing, absolutely indefinable, some one thing that is the same in all the various degrees and in all the various kinds of it that there may be. We may be able to say how it is related to other things: that, for example, it is in the mind, that it causes desire, that we are conscious of it, etc., etc. We can, I say, describe its relations to other things, but define it we can not. And if anybody tried to define pleasure for us as being any other natural object; if anybody were to say, for instance, that pleasure means the sensation of red, and were to proceed to deduce from that that pleasure is a colour, we should be entitled to laugh at him and to distrust his future statements about pleasure^ Well, that would be the same fallacy which I have called the naturalistic fallacy. That ‘pleased’ does not mean ‘having the sensation of red,’ or anything else whatever, does not prevent us from understanding what it does mean. It is enough for us to know that ‘pleased’ does mean ‘having the sensation of pleasure,’ and though pleasure is absolutely in- definable, though pleasure is pleasure and nothing else whatever, yet we feel no difficulty in saying that we are pleased. The reason is, of course, that when I say ‘I am pleased,’ I do not mean that ‘I’ am the same thing as ‘having pleasure.’ And similarly no difficulty need be found in my saying that ‘pleasure is good’ and yet not meaning that ‘pleasure’ is the same thing as ‘good,’ that pleasure means good, and that good means pleasure.Jlf I were to imagine that when I said ‘I am pleased,’ I meant that I was exactly the same thing as ‘pleased,’ I should not indeed call that a naturalistic fallacy, although it would be the same fallacy as I have called naturalistic with reference to Ethics. The reason of this is obvious enough. When a man confuses two natural objects with one another, defining the one by the other, if for instance, he confuses himself, who is one natural object, with ‘pleased’ or with ‘pleasure’ which are others, then there is no reason to call the fallacy naturalistic. But if he confuses ‘good,’ which is not in the same sense a natural object, with any natural object whatever, then there is a reason for calling that a naturalistic fallacy; its being made with regard to ‘good’ marks it as something quite specific, and this specific mistake deserves a name because it is so common. 14 THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF ETHICS [chap. As for the reasons why good is not to be considered a natural object, they may be reserved for discussion in another place. But, for the present, it is suflScient to notice this: Even if it were a natural object, that would not alter the nature of the fallacy nor diminish its importance one whit. All that I have said about it would remain quite equally true: only the name which I have called it would not be so appropriate as I think it is. And I do not care about the name: what I do care about is the fallacy. It does not matter what we call it, provided we recognise it when we meet with it. It is to be met with in almost every book on Ethics; and yet it is not recognised: and that is why it is necessary to multiply illustrations of it, and convenient to give it a name. It is a very simple fallacy indeed. When we say that an orange is yellow, we do not think our statement binds us to hold that ‘orange’ means nothing else than ‘yellow,’ or that nothing can be yellow but an orange. Supposing the orange is also sweet! Does that bind us to say that ‘sweet’ is exactly the same thing as ‘yellow,’ that ‘sweet’ must be defined as ‘yellow’? And supposing it be recognised that ‘yellow’ just means ‘yellow’ and nothing else whatever, does that make it any more difficult to hold that oranges are yellow? Most certainly it does not: on the contrary, it would be absolutely meaningless to say that oranges were yellow, unless yellow did in the end mean just ‘yellow’ and nothing else whatever — unless it was absolutely indefinable. We should not get any very clear notion about things, which are yellow — we should not get very far with our science, if we were bound to hold that everything which was yellow, meant exactly the same thing as yellow. We should find we had to hold that an orange was exactly the same thing as a stool, a piece of paper, a lemon, anything you like. We could prove any number of absurdities; but should we be the nearer to the truth? Why, then, should it be different with ‘good’? Why, if good is good and indefinable, should I be held to deny that pleasure is good? Is there any difficulty in holding both to be true at once? On the contrary, there is no meaning in saying that pleasure is good, unless good is something different from pleasure. It is absolutely useless, so far as Ethics is concerned, to prove, as Mr Spencer 1 ] THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF ETHICS 15 tries to do, that increase of pleasure coincides with increase of life, unless good means something different from either life or pleasure. He might just as well try to prove that an orange is yellow by shewing that it always is wrapped up in paper. 13. In fact, if it is not the case that ‘good’ denotes some- thing simple and indefinable, only two alternatives are possible: either it is a complex, a given whole, about the correct analysis of which there may be disagreement; or else it means nothing at all, and there is no such subject as Ethics. In general, how- ever, ethical philosophers have attempted to define good, without recognising what such an attempt must mean. They actually use arguments which involve one or both of the absurdities considered in § 11. We are, therefore, justified in concluding that the attempt to define good is chiefly due to want of clear- ness as to the possible nature of definition. There are, in fact, only two serious alternatives to be considered, in order to establish the conclusion that ‘good’ does denote a simple and indefinable notion. It might possibly denote a complex, as ‘horse’ does; or it might have no meaning at all. Neither of these possibilities has, however, been clearly conceived and seriously maintained, as such, by those who presume to define good; and both may be dismissed by a simple appeal to facts. (1) The hypothesis that disagreement about the meaning of good is disagreement with regard to the correct analysis of a given whole, may be most plainly seen to be incorrect by con- sideration of the fact that, whatever definition be offered, it may be always asked, with significance, of the complex so defined, whether it is itself good. To take, for instance, one of the more plausible, because one of the more complicated, of such proposed definitions, it may easily be thought, at first sight, that to be good may mean to be that which we desire to desire. Thus if we apply this definition to a particular instance and say ‘When we think that A is good, we are thinking that A is one of the things which we desire to desire,’ our proposition may seem quite plausible. But, if we carry the investigation further, and ask ourselves ‘Is it good to desire to desire A?’ it is apparent, on a little reflection, that this question is itself as intelligible, as the original question ‘Is A good? ’ — that we are. 16 THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF ETHICS [CHAP. in fact, now asking for exactly the same information about the desire to desire A. for which we formerly asked with regard to A itself. But it is also apparent that the meaning of this second question cannot be correctly analysed into ‘Is the desire to desire A one of the things which we desire to desire?’: we have not before our minds anything so complicated as the question ‘ Do we desire to desire to desire to desire A ? ’ Moreover any one can easily convince himselt by inspection that the predicate of this proposition — ‘good’ — is positively different from the notion of ‘desiring to desire’ which enters into its subject: ‘That we should desire to desire A is good’ is not merely equivalent to ‘That A should be good is good.’ It may indeed be true that what we desire to desire is always also good; perhaps, even the converse maybe true: but it is very doubtful whether this is the case, and the mere fact that we understand very well what is meant by doubting it, shews clearly that we have two different notions before our minds. (2) And the same consideration is sufficient to dismiss the h}^pothesis that ‘good’ has no meaning whatsoever. It is very natural to make the mistake of supposing that what is uni- versally true is of such a nature that its negation would be self-contradictory: the importance which has been assigned to analytic propositions in the history of philosophy shews how easy such a mistake is. And thus it is very easy to conclude that what seems to be a universal ethical principle is in fact an identical proposition; that, if, for example, whatever is called ‘good’ seems to be pleasant, the proposition ‘Pleasure is the good’ does not assert a connection between two different notions, but involves only one, that of pleasure, which is easily recognised as a distinct entity. But whoever will attentively consider with himself what is actually before his mind when he asks the question ‘Is pleasure (or whatever it may be) after all good?’ can easily satisfy himself that he is not merely wondering whether pleasure is pleasant. And if he will try this experiment with each suggested definition in succession, he may become expert enough to recognise that in every case he has before his mind a unique object, with regard to the connection of which with any other object, a distinct question may be asked. Every I] THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF ETHICS 17 one does in fact understand the question ‘Is this good?’ When he thinks of it, his state of mind is different from what it would be, were he asked ‘Is this pleasant, or desired, or approved?’ It has a distinct meaning for him, even though he may not recognise in what respect it is distinct. Whenever he thinks of ‘intrinsic value,’ or ‘intrinsic worth,’ or says that a thing ‘ought to exist,’ he has before his mind the unique object — the unique property of things — which I mean by ‘good.’ Everybody is constantly aware of this notion, although he may never become aware at all that it is different from other notions of which he is also aware. But, for correct ethical reasoning, it is extremely important that he should become aware of this fact; and, as soon as the nature of the problem is clearly understood, there should be little difficulty in advancing so far in analysis. 14. ‘Good,’ then, is indefinable; and yet, so far as I know, there is only one ethical writer. Prof. Henry Sidgwick, who has clearly recognised and stated this fact. We shall see, indeed, how far many of the most reputed ethical systems fall short of drawing the conclusions which follow from such a recognition. At present I will only quote one instance, which will serve to illustrate the meaning and importance of this principle that ‘good’ is indefinable, or, as Prof. Sidgwick says, an ‘unanalysable notion.’ It is an instance to which Prof. Sidgwick himself refers in a note on the passage, in which he argues that ‘ought’ is unanalysableh ‘Bentham,’ says Sidgwick, ‘explains that his fundamental principle “states the greatest happiness of all those whose interest is in question as being the right and proper end of human action’”; and yet ‘his language in other passages of the same chapter would seem to imply’ that he means by the word “right” “conducive to the general happiness.” Prof. Sidgwick sees that, if you take these two statements together, you get the absurd result that ‘greatest happiness is the end of human action, which is conducive to the general happiness’; and so absurd does it seem to him to call this result, as Bentham calls it, ‘the fundamental principle of a moral system,’ that he sug- gests that Bentham cannot have meant it. Yet Prof. Sidgwick 1 Methods of Ethics, Bk. i, Chap, iii, § 1 (6th edition). 18 THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF ETHICS [chap. himself states elsewhere^ that Psychological Hedonism is not seldom confounded with Egoistic Hedonism’; and that confusion, as we shall see, rests chiefly on that same fallacy, the naturalistic fallacy, which is implied in Bentham’s state- ments. Prof. Sidgwick admits therefore that this fallacy is sometimes committed, absurd as it is; and I am inclined to think that Bentham may really have been one of those who committed it. Mill, as we shall see, certainly did commit it. In any case, whether Bentham committed it or not, his doctrine, as above quoted, will serve as a very good illustration of this fallacy, and of the importance of the contrary proposition that good is indefinable. Let us consider this doctrine. Bentham seems to imply, so Prof. Sidgwick says, that the word ‘right’ means ‘conducive to general happiness.’ Now this, by itself, need not necessarily involve the naturalistic fallacy. For the word ‘right’ is very commonly appropriated to actions which lead to the attainment of what is good ; which are regarded as means to the ideal and not as ends-in-themselves. This use of ‘right,’ as denoting what is good as a means, whether or not it be also good as an end, is indeed the use to which I shall confine the word. Had Bentham been using ‘right’ in this sense, it might be perfectly consistent for him to define right as ‘conducive to the general happiness,’ provided only (and notice this proviso) he had already proved, or laid down as an axiom, that general happiness was the good, or (what is equivalent to this) that general happiness alone was good. For in that case he would have already defined the good as general happiness (a position perfectly consistent, as we have seen, with the contention that ‘good’ is indefinable), and, since right was to be defined as ‘conducive to the good,’ it would actually mean ‘conducive to general happiness.’ But this method of escape from the charge of having committed the naturalistic fallacy has been closed by Bentham himself. For his fundamental principle is, we see, that the greatest happiness of all concerned is the right and proper end of human action. He applies the word ‘right,’ there- fore, to the end, as such, not only to the means which are 1 Methods of Ethics, Bk. i. Chap, iv, § 1. l] THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF ETHICS 19 conducive to it; and, that being so, right can no longer be defined as ‘conducive to the general happiness,’ without in- volving the fallacy in question. For now it is obvious that the definition of right as conducive to general happiness can be used by him in support of the fundamental principle that general happiness is the right end; instead of being itself derived from that principle. If right, by definition, means conducive to general happiness, then it is obvious that general happiness is the right end. It is not necessary now first to prove or assert that general happiness is the right end, before right is defined as conducive to general happiness — a perfectly valid procedure; but on the contrary the definition of right as con- ducive to general happiness proves general happiness to be the right end — a perfectly invalid procedure, since in this case the statement that ‘general happiness is the right end of human 'antibn’ is not an ethical principle at all, but either, as we have seen, a proposition a bout the meaning of words, o r else a proposition about^the nature of general happiness, not about its rightness or goodness. Now, I do hot wish the importance I assign to this fallacy to be misunderstood. The discovery of it does not at all refute Bentham’s contention that greatest happiness is the proper end of human action, if that be understood as an ethical proposition, as he undoubtedly intended it. That principle may be true all the same; we shall consider whether it is so in succeeding chapters. Bentham might have maintained it, as Prof. Sidgwick does, even if the fallacy had been pointed out to him. What I am maintaining is that the reasons which he actually gives for his ethical proposition are fallacious ones so far as they consist in a definition of right. What I suggest is that he did not perceive them to be fallacious; that, if he had done so, he would have been led to seek for other reasons in support of his Utilitarianism; and that, had he sought for other reasons, he might have found none which he thought to be sufficient. In that case he would have changed his whole system — a most important consequence. It is un- doubtedly also possible that he would have thought other reasons to be sufficient, and in that case his ethical system, 20 THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF ETHICS [chap. in its main results, would still have stood. But, even in this latter case, his use of the fallacy would be a serious objection to him as an ethical philosopher. For it is the business ol Ethics, I must insist, not only to obtain true results, but also to find valid reasons for them. The direct object of Ethics is know- ledge and not practice; and any one who uses the naturalistic fallacy has certainly not fulfilled this first object, however correct his practical principles may be. My objections to Naturalism are then, in the first place, that it offers no reason at all, far less any valid reason, for any ethical principle whatever; and in this it already fails to satisfy the requirements of Ethics, as a scientific study. But in the second place I contend that, though it gives a reason for no ethical principle, it is a cause of the acceptance of false prin- ciples — it deludes the mind into accepting ethical principles, which are false; q,nd in this it is contrary to every aim of Ethics. It is easy to see that if we start with a definition of right conduct as conduct conducive to general happiness; then, knowing that right conduct is universally conduct conducive to the good, we very easily arrive at the result that the good is general happiness. If, on the other hand, we once recognise that we must start our Ethics without a definition, we shall be much more apt to look about us, before we adopt any ethical principle whatever; and the more we look about us, the less likely are we to adopt a false one. It may be replied to this: Yes, but we shall look about us just as much, before we settle on our definition, and are therefore iust as likely to be right. But I will try to shew that this is not the case. If w^_ start wi th the conymtipn_iliat-a.4iefiiiitiQnm£ good-can be found,, we start with the conviction that good can mean nothing else than some one property of things; and our only business will then be to discover what that property: is,_Bu,t if we recognise that, so far as tEe^’meanmg of good goes, anything whatever may be good, we start with a much more operTlnindT“ Moreover, apart from the fact that, when we think we have a definition, we cannot logically defend our ethical principles in any way whatever, we shall also be much less apt to defend them well, even if illogically. For we shall start with the conviction that good l] THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF ETHICS 21 must mean so and so, and shall therefore be inclined either to misunderstand our opponent’s arguments or to cut them short with the reply, ‘ This is not an open question : the very meaning of the word decides it; no one can think otherwise except through confusion.’ 15. Our first conclusion as to the subject-matter of Ethics is, then, that there is a simple, indefinable, unanalysable object of thought by reference to which it must be defined. By what name we call this unique object is a matter of indifference, so long as we clearly recognise what it is and that it does differ from other objects. The words which are commonly taken as the signs of ethical judgments all do refer to it; and they are expressions of ethical judgments solely because they do so refer. But they may refer to it in two different ways, which it is very important to distinguish, if we are to have a complete definition of the range of ethical judgments. Before I proceeded to argue that there was such an indefinable notion involved in ethical notions, I stated (§ 4) that it was necessary for Ethics to enume- rate all true universal judgments, asserting that such and such a thing was good, whenever it occurred. But, although all such judgments do refer to that unique notion which I have called ‘good,’ they do not all refer to it in the same way. They may either assert that this unique property does always attach to the thing in question, or else they may assert only that the thing in question is a cause or necessary condition for the existence of other things to which this unique property does attach. The nature of these two species of universal ethical judgments is extremely different; and a great part of the difficulties, which are met with in ordinary ethical speculation, are due to the failure to distinguish them clearly. Their dif- ference has, indeed, received expression in ordinary language by the contrast between the terms ‘good as means’ and ‘good in itself,’ ‘value as a means’ and ‘intrinsic value.’ But these terms are apt to be applied correctly only in the more obvious instances; and this seems to be due to the fact that the distinction between the conceptions which they denote has not been made a separate object of investigation. This distinction may be briefly pointed out as follows. 22 THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF ETHICS [CHAP. 16. Whenever we judge that a thing is ‘good as a means,’ we are making a judgment with regard to its causal relations: we judge both that it will have a particular kind of effect, and that that effect will be good in itself. But to find causal judgments that are universally true is notoriously a matter of extreme difficulty. The late date at which most of the physical sciences became exact, and the comparative fewness of the laws which they have succeeded in establishing even now, are sufficient proofs of this difficulty. With regard, then, to what are the most frequent objects of ethical judgments, namely actions, it is obvious that we cannot be satisfied that any of our universal causal judgments are true, even in the sense in which scientific laws are so. We cannot even discover hypothetical laws of the form ‘Exactly this action will always under these conditions, produce exactly that effect.’ But for a correct ethical judgment with regard to the effects of certain actions we require more than this in two respects. (1) We require to know that a given action will produce a certain effect, under whatever circumstances it occurs. But this is certainly impossible. It is certain that in different circumstances the same action may produce effects which are utterly different in all respects upon which the value of the efiects depends. Hence we can never be entitled to more than a generalisation — to a proposition of the form ‘This result generally follows this kind of action’; and even this generalisation will only be true, if the circumstances under which the action occurs are generally the same. This is in fact the case, to a great extent, within any one particular age and state of society. But, when we take other ages into account, in many most important cases the normal circum- stances of a given kind of action will be so different, that the generalisation which is true for one will not be true for another. With regard then to ethical judgments which assert that a certain kind of action is good as a means to a certain kind of effect, none will be universally true; and many, though generally true at one period, will be generally false at others. But (2) we require to know not only that one good effect will be produced, but that, among all subsequent events affected by the action in question, the balance of good will be greater I] THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF ETHICS 23 than if any other possible action had been performed. In other words, to judge that an action is generally a means to good is to judge not only that it generally does some good, but that it generally does the greatest good of which the circumstances admit. In this respect ethical judgments about the effects of action involve a difficulty and a complication far greater than that involved in the establishment of scientific laws. For the latter we need only consider a single effect; for the former it is essential to consider not only this, but the effects of that effect, and so on as far as our view into the future can reach. It is, indeed, obvious that our view can never reach far enough for us to be certain that any action will produce the best possible effects. We must be content, if the greatest possible balance of good seems to be produced within a limited period. But it is important to notice that the whole series of effects within a period of considerable length is actually taken account of in our common judgments that an action is good as a means; and that hence this additional complication, which makes ethical generalisations so far more difficult to establish than scientific laws, is one which is involved in actual ethical discussions, and is of practical importance. The commonest rules of conduct involve such considerations as the balancing of future bad health against immediate gains; and even if we can never settle with any certainty how we shall secure the greatest possible total of good, we try at least to assure ourselves that probable future evils will not be greater than the immediate good. 17 . There are, then, judgments which state that certain kinds of things have good effects; and such judgments, for the reasons just given, have the important characteristics (1) that they are unlikely to be true, if they state that the kind of thing in question always has good effects, and (2) that, even if they only state that it generally has good effects, many of them will only be true of certain periods in the world’s history. On the other hand there are judgments which state that certain kinds of things are themselves good; and these differ from the last in that, if true at all, they are all of them universally true. It is, therefore, extremely important to distinguish these two kinds 24 THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF ETHICS [chap. of possible judgments. Both may be expressed in the same language: in both cases we commonly say ‘Such and such a thing is good.’ But in the one case ‘good’ will mean ‘good as means,’ i.e. merely that the thing is a means to good — will have good effects: in the other case it will mean ‘good as end’ — we shall be i udging that the thing itself has the property which, in the first case, we asserted only to belong to its effects. It is plain that these are very different assertions to make about a thing; it is plain that either or both of them may be made, both truly and falsely, about all manner of things; and it is certain that unless we are clear as to which of the two we mean to assert, we shall have a very poor chance of deciding rightly whether our assertion is true or false. It is precisely this clear- ness as to the meaning of the question asked which has hitherto been almost entirely lacking in ethical speculation. Ethics has always been predominantly concerned with the investigation of a limited class of actions. With regard to these we may ask both how far they are good in themselves and how far they have a general tendency to produce good results. And the arguments brought forward in ethical discussion have always been of both classes — both such as would prove the conduct in question to be good in itself and such as would prove it to be good as a means. But that these are the only questions which any ethical dis- cussion can have to settle, and that to settle the one is not the same thing as to settle the other — these two fundamental facts have in general escaped the notice of ethical philosophers. Ethical questions are commonly asked in an ambiguous form. It is asked ‘What is a man’s duty under these circumstances?’ or ‘Is it right to act in this way?’ or ‘What ought we to aim at securing?’ But all these questions are capable of further analysis; a correct answer to any of them involves both judg- ments of what is good in itself and causal judgments. This is implied even by those who maintain that we have a direct and immediate judgment of absolute rights and duties. Such a judgment can only mean that the course of action in question is the best thing to do; that, by acting so, every good that can be secured will have been secured. Now we are not concerned with the question whether such a judgment will ever be true. I] THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF ETHICS 25 The question is ; What does it imply, if it is true ? And the only possible answer is that, whether true or false, it implies both a proposition as to the degree of goodness of the action in question, as compared with other things, and a number of causal propositions. For it cannot be denied that the action will have consequences: and to deny that the consequences matter is to make a judgment of their intrinsic value, as compared with the action itself. In asserting that the action is the best thing to do, we assert that it together with its consequences presents a greater sum of intrinsic value than any possible alternative. And this condition may be realised by any of the three cases : — (a) If the action itself has greater intrinsic value than any alternative, whereas both its consequences and those of the alternatives are absolutely devoid either of intrinsic merit or intrinsic demerit; or (b) if, though its consequences are in- trinsically bad, the balance of intrinsic value is greater than would be produced by any alternative; or (c) if, its consequences being intrinsically good, the degree of value belonging to them and it conjointly is greater than that of any alternative series. In short, to assert that a certain line of conduct is, at a given time, absolutely right or obligatory, is obviously to assert that more good or less evil will exist in the world, if it be adopted than if anything else be done instead. But this implies a judgment as to the value both of its own consequences and of those of any possible alternative. And that an action will have such and such consequences involves a number of causal judgments. Similarly, in answering the question ‘What ought we to aim at securing?’ causal judgments are again involved, but in a somewhat different way. We are liable to forget, because it is so obvious, that this question can never be answered correctly except by naming something which can be secured. Not every- thing can be secured; and, even if we judge that nothing which cannot be obtained would be of equal value with that which can, the possibility of the latter, as well as its value, is essential to its being a proper end of action. Accordingly neither our judgments as to what actions we ought to perform, nor even our judgments as to the ends which they ought to produce, are 26 THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF ETHICS [chap. pure judgments of intrinsic value. With regard to the former, an action which is absolutely obligatory may have no intrinsic value whatsoever; that it is perfectly virtuous may mean merely that it causes the best possible effects. And with regard to the latter, these best possible results which justify our action can, in any case, have only so much of intrinsic value as the laws of nature allow us to secure; and they in their turn may have no intrinsic value whatsoever, but may merely be a means to the attainment (in a still further future) of something that has such value. Whenever, therefore, we ask ‘What ought we to do?’ or ‘What ought we to try to get?’ we are asking questions which involve a correct answer to two others, com- pletely different in kind from one another. We must know both what degree of intrinsic value different things have, and how these different things may be obtained. But the vast majority of questions which have actually been discussed in Ethics — all practical questions, indeed — involve this double knowledge; and they have been discussed without any clear separation of the two distinct questions involved. A great part of the vast disagreements prevalent in Ethics is to be attributed to this failure in analysis. By the use of conceptions which involve both that of intrinsic value and that of causal relation, as if they involved intrinsic value only, two different errors have been rendered almost universal. Either it is assumed that nothing has intrinsic value which is not possible, or else it is assumed that what is necessary must have intrinsic value. Hence the primary and peculiar business of Ethics, the determination what things have intrinsic value and in what degrees, has received no adequate treatment at all. And on the other hand a thorough discussion of means has been also largely neglected, owing to an obscure perception of the truth that it is perfectly irrelevant to the question of intrinsic values. But however this may be, and however strongly any particular reader may be convinced that some one of the mutually contradictory systems which hold the field has given a correct answer either to the question what has intrinsic value, or to the question what we ought to do, or to both, it must at least be admitted that the questions what is best in itself and what will bring about the best possible, are I] THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF ETHICS 27 utterly distinct; that both belong to the actual subject-matter of Ethics; and that the more clearly distinct questions are distinguished, the better is our chance of answering both correctly. 18. There remains one point which must not be omitted in a complete description of the kind of questions which Ethics has to answer. The main division of those questions is, as I have said, into two; the question what things are good in themselves, and the question to what other things these are related as effects. The first of these, which is the primary ethical question and is presupposed by the other, includes a correct comparison of the various things w'hich have intrinsic value (if there are many such) in respect of the degree of value which they have; and such comparison involves a difficulty of principle which has greatly aided the confusion of intrinsic value with mere ‘ goodness as a means.’ It has been pointed out that one difference between a judgment which asserts that a thing is good in itself, and a judgment which asserts that it is a means to good, consists in the fact that the first, if true of one instance of the thing in question, is necessarily true of all; whereas a thing which has good effects under some circumstances may have bad ones under others. Now it is certainly true that , all judgments of intrinsic value are in this sense universal; but the principle which I have now to enunciate may easily make it appear as if they were not so but resembled the judgment of means in being merely general. There is, as will presently be maintained, a vast number of different things, each of which has intrinsic value ; there are also very many which are positively bad; and there is a still larger class of things, which appear to be indifferent. But a thing belonging to any of these three classes may occur as part of a whole, which includes among its other parts other things belonging both to the same and to the other two classes ; and these wholes, as such, may also have intrinsic value. The paradox, to which it is necessary to call attention, is that tne value of such a whole hears no regular pro- portion to the sum of the values of its parts. It is certain that a good thing may exist in such a relation to another good thing that the value of the whole thus formed is immensely greater 28 THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF ETHICS [CHAP. than the sum of the values of the two good things. It is certain that a whole formed of a good thing and an indifferent thing may have immensely greater value than that good thing itself possesses. It is certain that two bad things or a bad thing and an indifferent thing may form a whole much worse than the sum of badness of its parts. And it seems as if indifferent things may also be the sole constituents of a whole which has great value, either positive or negative. Whether the addition of a bad thing to a good whole may increase the positive value of the whole, or the addition of a bad thing to a bad may produce a whole having positive value, may seem more doubt- ful; but it is, at least, possible, and this possibility must be taken into account in our ethical investigations. However we may decide particular questions, the principle is clear. The value of a whole must not he assumed to be the same as the sum of the values of its parts. A single instance will suffice to illustrate the kind of relation in question. It seems to be true that to be conscious of a beautiful object is a thing of great intrinsic value; whereas the same object, if no one be conscious of it, has certainly com- paratively little value, and is commonly held to have none at all. But the consciousness of a beautiful object is certainly a whole of some sort in which we can distinguish as parts the object on the one hand and the being conscious on the other. Now this latter factor occurs as part of a different whole, whenever we are conscious of anything; and it would seem that some of these wholes have at all events very little value, and may even be indifferent or positively bad. Yet we cannot always attribute the slightness of their value to any positive demerit in the object which differentiates them from the consciousness of beauty; the object itself may approach as near as possible to absolute neutrality. Since, therefore, mere consciousness does not always confer great value upon the whole of which it forms a part, even though its object may have no great demerit, we cannot at- tribute the great superiority of the consciousness of a beautiful thing over the beautiful thing itself to the mere addition of the value of consciousness to that of the beautiful thing. Whatever the intrinsic value of consciousness may be, it does not give to I] THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF ETHICS 29 the whole of which it forms a part a value proportioned to the sum of its value and that of its object. If this be so, we have here an instance of a whole possessing a different intrinsic value from the sum of that of its parts; and whether it be so or not, what is meant by such a difference is illustrated by this case. 19. There are, then, wholes which possess the property that their value is different from the sum of the values of their parts; and the relations which subsist between such parts and the whole of which they form a part have not hitherto been dis- tinctly recognised or received a separate name. Two points are especially worthy of notice. (1) It is plain that the existence of any such part is a necessary condition for the existence of that good which is constituted by the whole. And exactly the same language will also express the relation between a means and the good thing which is its effect. But yet there is a most important difference between the two cases, constituted by the fact that the part is, whereas the means is not, a part of the good thing for the existence of which its existence is a necessary condition. The necessity by which, if the good in question is to exist, the means to it must exist is merely a natural or causal necessity. If the laws of nature were different, exactly the same good might exist, although what is now a necessary condition of its existence did not exist. The existence of the means has no intrinsic value ; and its utter annihilation would leave the value of that which it is now necessary to secure entirely unchanged. But in the case of a part of such a whole as we are now considering, it is otherwise. In this case the good in question cannot conceivably exist, unless the part exist also. The necessity which connects the two is quite inde- pendent of natural law. What is asserted to have intrinsic value is the existence of the whole; and the existence of the whole includes the existence of its part. Suppose the part removed, and what remains is not what was asserted to have intrinsic value; but if we suppose a means removed, what remains is just what was asserted to have intrinsic value. And yet (2) the existence of the part may itself have no more intrinsic value than that of the means. It is this fact which constitutes the paradox of the relation which we are discussing. 30 TnE SUBJECT-MATTER OF ETHICS [CHAP. It has just been said that what has intrinsic value is the existence of the whole, and that this includes the existence of the part; and from this it would seem a natural inference that the existence of the part has intrinsic value. But the inference would be as false as if we were to conclude that, because the number of two stones was two, each of the stones was also two. The part of a valuable whole retains exactly the same value when it is, as when it is not, a part of that whole. If it had value under other circumstances, its value is not any greater when it is part of a far more valuable whole; and if it had no value by itself, it has none still, however great be that of the whole of which it now forms a part. We are not then justified in asserting that one and the same thing is under some circum- stances intrinsically good, and under others not so; as we are justified in asserting of a means that it sometimes does and sometimes does not produce good results. And yet we are justified in asserting that it is far more desirable that a certain thing should exist under some circumstances than under others; namely when other things will exist in such relations to it as to form a more valuable whole. It will not have more intrinsic value under these circumstances than under others; it will not necessarily even be a means to the existence of things having more intrinsic value ; but it will, like a means, be a necessary condition for the existence of that which has greater intrinsic value, although, unlike a means, it will itself form a part of this more valuable existent. 20. I have said that the peculiar relation between part and whole which I have just been trying to define is one which has received no separate name. It would, however, be useful that it should have one ; and there is a name, which might well be appropriated to it, if only it could be divorced from its present unfortunate usage. Philosophers, especially those who profess to have derived great benefit from the writings of Hegel, have latterly made much use of the terms ‘organic whole,’ ‘organic unity,’ ‘organic relation.’ The reason why these terms might well be appropriated to the use suggested is that the peculiar relation of parts to whole, just defined, is one of the properties which distinguishes the wholes to which they are actually applied I] THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF ETHICS 31 with the greatest frequency. And the reason why it is desirable that they should be divorced from their present usage is that, as at present used, they have no distinct sense and, on the con- trary, both imply and propagate errors of confusion. To say that a thing is an ‘organic whole’ is generally under- stood to imply that its parts are related to one another and to itself as means to end; it is also understood to imply that they have a property described in some such phrase as that they have 'no meaning or significance apart from the whole’; and finally such a whole is also treated as if it had the property to which I am proposing that the name should be confined. But those who use the term give us, in general, no hint as to how they suppose these three properties to be related to one another. It seems generally to be assumed that they are identical; and always, at least, that they are necessarily connected with one another. That they are not identical I have already tried to shew; to suppose them so is to neglect the very distinctions pointed out in the last paragraph; and the usage might well be discontinued merely because it encourages such neglect. But a still more cogent reason for its discontinuance is that, so far from being necessarily connected, the second is a property which can attach to nothing, being a self-contradictory conception; whereas the first, if we insist on its most important sense, applies to many cases, to which we have no reason to think that the third applies also, and the third certainly applies to many to which the first does not apply. 21 . These relations between the three properties just dis- tinguished may be illustrated by reference to a whole of the kind from which the name ‘organic’ was derived — a whole which is an organism in the scientific sense — namely the human body. (1) There exists between many parts of our body (though not between all) a relation which has been familiarised by the fable, attributed to Menenius Agrippa, concerning the belly and its members. We can find in it parts such that the con- tinued existence of the one is a necessary condition for the continued existence of the other; while the continued existence of this latter is also a necessary condition for the continued existence of the former. This amounts to no more than saying 32 THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF ETHICS [chap. that in the body we have instances of two things, both enduring for some time, which have a relation of mutual causal dependence on one another — a relation ot ‘ reciprocity.’ Frequently no more than this is meant by saying that the parts ot the body form an ‘organic unity,’ or that they are mutually means and ends to one another. And we certainly have here a striking character- istic of living things. But it would be extremely rash to assert that this relation of mutual causal dependence was only ex- hibited by living things and hence was sufficient to define their peculiarity. And it is obvious that of two things which have this relation of mutual dependence, neither may have intrinsic value, or one may have it and the other lack it. They are not necessarily ‘ends’ to one another in any sense except that in which ‘end’ means ‘effect.’ And moreover it is plain that in this sense the whole cannot be an end to any of its parts. We are apt to talk of ‘the whole’ in contrast to one of its parts, when in fact we mean only the rest of the parts. But strictly I the whole must include all its parts and no part can be a cause P'C’t ;.-c / I of the whole, because it cannot be a cause of itself. It is plain, ' y > therefore, that this relation of mutual causal dependence implies nothing with regard to the value of either of the objects which have it; and that, even if both of them happen also to have value, this relation between them is one which cannot hold between part and whole. But (2) it may also be the case that our body as a whole has a value greater than the sum of values of its parts; and this may be what is meant when it is said that the parts are means to the whole. It is obvious that if we ask the question ‘Why should the parts be such as they are?’ a proper answer may be ‘Because the whole they form has so much value.’ But it is equally obvious that the relation which we thus assert to exist between part and whole is quite different from that which we assert to exist between part and part when we say ‘This part exists, because that one could not exist without it.’ In the latter case we assert the two parts to be causally connected; but, in the former, part and whole cannot be cau.sally connected, and the relation which we assert to exist between them may exist even though the parts are not causally connected either. I] THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF ETHICS 83 All the parts of a picture do not have that relation of mutual causal dependence, which certain parts of the body have, and yet the existence of those which do not have it may be abso- lutely essential to the value of the whole. The two relations are quite distinct in kind, and we cannot infer the existence of the one from that of the other. It can, therefore, serve no useful purpose to include them both under the same name; and if we are to say that a whole is organic because its parts are (in this sense) ‘ means’ to the whole, we must not say that it is organic because its parts are causally dependent on one another. 22. But finally (3) the sense which has been most prominent in recent uses of the term ‘organic whole’ is one whereby it asserts the parts of such a whole to have a property which the parts of no whole can possibly have. It is supposed that just as the whole would not be what it is but for the existence of the parts, so the parts would not be what they are but for the existence of the whole; and this is understood to mean not merely that any particular part could not exist unless the others existed too (which is the case where relation (1) exists between the parts), but actually that the part is no distinct object of thought — that the whole, of which it is a part, is in its turn a part of it. That this supposition is self-contradictory a very little reflection should be sufficient to shew. We may admit, indeed, that when a particular thing is a part of a whole, it does possess a predicate which it would not otherwise possess — namely that it is a part of that whole. But what cannot be a dmitted is that this predicate alters the nature or enters int o the definition of the thing which has it. When we think of the part itself, we~mean "jusfr that which we assert7~in~ this' ca se, to ^auel^he predicate that it is part of the w^hole; and the mere assertion that it is a part of the whole Tnvolves that it should itself be distinct from that which we assert of it. Otherwise ^ we contradict ourselves since we assert that, not it, but some- thing else — namely it together with that which we assert of it — has the predicate which we assert of it. In short, it is obvious that no part contains analytically the whole to which it belongs, or any other parts of that w^hole. The relation of part to whole is nut the same as that of whole to part ; and the very definition 34 THE SUBJECT-MATTEE OF ETHICS [chap. T Ati rcCjtc ; t'lO of the latter is that it does contain analytically that which is said to be its part. And yet this very self-contradictory doc- trine is the chief mark which shews the influence of Hegel upon modern philosophy — an influence which pervades almost the whole of orthodox philosophy. This is what is generally implied by the cry against falsification by abstraction; that a whole is always a part of its part! ‘If you want to know the truth about a part,’ we are told, ‘you must consider not that part, but something else — namely the whole: nothing is true of the part, but only of the whole.’ Yet plainly it must be true of the part at least that it is a part of the whole; and it is obvious that when we say it is, we do not mean merely t hat the whole is a part of itself. This doctrine, therefore, that a part can have ‘no meaning or significance apart from its whole’ must be utterly rejected. It implies itself that the statement ‘This is a part of that whole’ has a meaning; and in order that this may have one, both subject and predicate must have a distinct meaning. And it is easy to see how this false doctrine has arisen by confusion with the two relations (1) and (2) which may really be properties of wholes. (a) The existence of a part may be connected by a natural or causal necessity with the existence of the other parts of its whole; and further what is a part of a whole and what has ceased to be such a part, although differing intrinsically from one another, may be called by one and the same name. Thus, to take a typical example, if an arm be cut off from the human body, we still call it an arm. Yet an arm, when it is a part of the body, undoubtedly differs from a dead arm: and hence we may easily be led to say ‘The arm which is a part of the body would not be what it is, if it were not such a part,’ and to think that the contradiction thus expressed is in reality a characteristic of things. But, in fact, the dead arm never was a part of the body; it is only partially identical with the living arm. Those parts of it which are identical with parts of the living arm are exactly the same, whether they belong to the body or not; and in them we have an undeniable instance of one and the same thing at one time forming a part, and at another not forming a part of the presumed ‘organic whole.’ I] THE SUBJECT-MATTER OP ETHICS 35 On the other hand those properties which are possessed by the living, and not by the dead, arm, do not exist in a changed form in the latter: they simply do not exist there at all. By a causal necessity their existence depends on their having that relation to the other parts of the body which we express by saying that they form part of it. Yet, most certainly, if they ever did not form part of the body, they would be exactly what they are when they do. That they differ intrinsically from the properties j of the dead arm and that they form part of the body are propositions not analytically related to one another. There is no contradiction in supposing them to retain such intrinsic differences and yet not to form part of the body. But (h) when we are told that a living arm has no meaning or significance apart from the body to which it belongs, a differ- ent fallacy is also suggested. ‘To have meaning or significance’ is commonly used in the sense of ‘to have importance’; and this again means ‘ to have value either as a means or as an end.’ Now it is quite possible that even a living arm, apart from its body, would have no intrinsic value whatever; although the whole of which it is a part has great intrinsic value owing to its presence. Thus we may easily come to say that, as a part of the body, it has great value, whereas by itself it would have none; and thus that its whole ‘meaning’ lies in its relation to the body. But in fact the value in question obviously does not belong to it at all. To have value merely as a part is equivalent to having no value at all, b ut merely being a part of that which Las it. Owing, however, to neglect of this distinction, the assertion that a part has value, as a part, which it would not otherwise have, easily leads to the assumption that it is also different, as a part, from what it would otherwise be; for it is, in fact, true that two things which have a different value must also differ in other respects. Hence the assumption that one and the same thing, because it is a part of a more valuable whole at one time than at another, therefore has more intrinsic value at one time than at another, has encouraged the self-contradictory belief that one and the same thing may be two different things, and that only in one of its forms is it truly what it is. For these reasons, I shall, where it seems convenient, take 36 THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF ETHICS [chap. I the liberty to use the term ‘organic’ with a special sense. I shall use it to denote the fact that a whole has an intrinsic value different in amount from the sum of the values of its parts. I shall use it to denote this and only this. The term will not imply any causal relation whatever between the parts of the whole in question. And it will not imply either, that the parts are inconceivable except as parts of that whole, or that, when they form parts of such a whole, they have a value different from that which they would have if they did not. Understood in this special and perfectly definite sense the relation of an organic whole to its parts is one of the most important which Ethics has to recognise. A chief part of that science should be occupied in comparing the relative values of various goods ; and the grossest errors will be committed in such comparison if it be assumed that wherever two things form a whole, the value of that whole is merely the sum of the values of those two things. With this question of ‘organic wholes,’ then, we com- plete the enumeration of the kind of problems, with which it is the business of Ethics to deal. 23. In this chapter I have endeavoured to enforce the following conclusions. (1) The peculiarity of Ethics is not that it investigates assertions about human conduct, but that it investigates assertions about that property of things which is denoted by the term ‘good,’ and the converse property denoted by the term ‘bad.’ It must, in order to establish its conclusions, investigate the truth of all such assertions, except those which assert the relation of this property only to a single existent (1 — 4). (2) This property, by reference to which The subject- matter of Ethics must be defined, is itself simple and indefinable (.5 — 14). And (3) all assertions about its relation to other things are of two, and only two, kinds: they either assert in what degree things themselves possess this property, or else they assert causal relations between other things and those which possess it (15 — 17). Finally, (4) in considering the different degrees in which things themselves possess this pro- perty, we have to take account of the fact that a whole may possess it in a degree different from that which is obtained by summing the degrees in which its parts possess it (18 — 22). CHAPTER II. NATURALISTIC ETHICS, 24. It results from the conclusions of Chapter I, that all ethical questions fall under one or other of three classes. The first class contains but one question — the question What is the nature of that peculiar predicate, the relation of which to other things constitutes the object of all other ethical investigations? or, in other words. What is meant by good? This first question I have already attempted to answer. The peculiar predicate, by reference to which the sphere of Ethics must be defined, is simple, unanalysable, indefinable. There remain two classes of questions with regard to the relation of this predicate to other things. We may ask either (1) To what things and in what degree does this predicate directly attach? What things are good in themselves? or (2) By what means shall we be able to make what exists in the world as good as possible? What causal relations hold between what is best in itself and other things ? In this and the two following chapters, I propose to discuss certain theories, which offer us an answer to the question What is good in itself? I say advisedly — an answer: for these theories are all characterised by the fact that, if true, they would simplify the study of Ethics very much. They all hold that there is only one kind of fact, of which the existence has any value at all. But they all also possess another characteristic, which is my reason for grouping them together and treating them first: namely that the main reason why the single kind of fact they name has been held to define the sole good, is that it has been 3 M 38 NATURALISTIC ETHICS [chap. held to define what is meant by ‘good’ itself. In other words they are all theories of the end or ideal, the adoption of which has been chiefly caused by the commission of what I have called the naturalistic fallacy: they all confuse the first and second of the three possible questions which Ethics can ask. It is, indeed, this fact which explains their contention that only a single kind of thing is good. That a thing should be good, it has been thought, means that it possesses this single property: and hence (it is thought) only what possesses this property is good. The inference seems very natural; and yet what is meant by it is self-contradictory. For those who make it fail to perceive that their conclusion ‘what possesses this property is good’ is a significant proposition: that it does not mean either ‘what possesses this property, possesses this property’ or ‘the word “good” denotes that a thing possesses this property.’ And yet, if it does not mean one or other of these two things, the inference contradicts its own premise. I propose, therefore, to discuss certain theories of what is good in itself, which are based on the naturalistic fallacy, in the sense that the commission of this fallacy has been the main cause of their wide acceptance. The discussion will be designed both (1) further to illustrate the fact that the naturalistic fallacy is a fallacy, or, in other words, that we are all aware of a certain simple quality, which (and not anything else) is what we mainly mean by the term ‘good’; and (2) to shew that not one, but many different things, possess this property. For I cannot hope to recommend the doctrine that things which are good do not owe their goodness to their common possession of any other property, without a criticism of the main doctrines, opposed to this, whose power to recommend themselves is proved by their wide prevalence. 25. The theories I propose to discuss may be conveniently divided into two groups. The naturalistic fallacy always implies that when we think ‘This is good,’ what we are thinking is that the thing in question bears a definite relation to some one other thing. But this one thing, by reference to which good is defined, may be either what I may call a natural object — something of which the existence is admittedly an object of experience — or NATURALISTIC ETHICS 39 n] else it may be an object which is only inferred to exist in a supersensible real world. These two types of ethical theory I propose to treat separately. Theories of the second type may conveniently be called ‘metaphysical/ and I shall postpone con- sideration of them till Chapter IV. In this and the following chapter, on the other hand, I shall deal with theories which owe their prevalence to the supposition that good can be defined by reference to a natural object', and these are what I mean by the name, which gives the title to this chapter, ‘Naturalistic Ethics.’ It should be observed that the fallacy, by reference to which I define ‘Metaphysical Ethics,’ is the same in kind; and I give it but one name, the naturalistic fallacy. But when we regard the ethical theories recommended by this fallacy, it seems con- venient to distinguish those which consider goodness to consist in a relation to something which exists here and now, from those which do not. According to the former. Ethics is an empirical or positive science: its conclusions could be all established by means of empirical observation and induction. But this is not the case with Metaphysical Ethics. There is, therefore, a marked distinction between these two groups of ethical theories based on the same fallacy. And within Naturalistic theories, too, a convenient division may also be made. There is one natural object, namely pleasure, which has perhaps been as frequently held to be the sole good as all the rest put together. And there is, moreover, a further reason for treating Hedonism separately. That doctrine has, I think, as plainly as any other, owed its prevalence to the naturalistic fallacy; but it has had a singular fate in that the writer, who first clearly exposed the fallacy of the naturalistic arguments by which it had been attempted to prove that pleasure was the sole good, has main- tained that nevertheless it is the sole good. I propose, there- fore, to divide my discussion of Hedonism from that of other Naturalistic theories; treating of Naturalistic Ethics in general in this chapter, and of Hedonism, in particular, in the next. 26. The subject of the present chapter is, then, ethical theories which declare that no intrinsic value is to be found except in the possession of some one natural property, other than pleasure; and which declare this because it is supposed that to 3-2 40 NATURALISTIC ETHICS [chap. be ‘good’ means to possess the property in question. Such theories I call ‘Naturalistic.’ I have thus appropriated the name Naturalism to a particular method of approaching Ethics — a method which, strictly understood, is inconsistent with the possibility of any Ethics whatsoever. This method consists in substituting for ‘good’ some one property of a natural object or of a collection of natural objects; and in thus replacing Ethics by some one of the natural sciences. In general, the science thus substituted is one of the sciences specially concerned with man, owing to the general mistake (for such I hold it to be) of regarding the matter of Ethics as confined to human conduct. In general. Psychology has been the science substituted, as by J. S. Mill ; or Sociology, as by Professor Clifford, and other modern writers. But any other science might equally well be substi- tuted. It is the same fallacy which is implied, when Professor Tyndall recommends us to ‘conform to the laws of matter’: and here the science which it is proposed to substitute for Ethics is simply Physics. The name then is perfectly general; for, no matter what the something is that good is held to mean, the theory is still Naturalism. Whether good be defined as yellow or green or blue, as loud or soft, as round or square, as sweet or bitter, as productive of life or productive of pleasure, as willed or desired or felt: whichever of these or of any other object in the world, good may be held to mean, the theory, which holds it to mean them, will be a naturalistic theory. I have called such theories naturalistic because all of these terms denote properties, simple or complex, of some simple or complex natural object; and, before I proceed to consider them, it will be well to define what is meant by ‘nature’ and by ‘natural objects.’ By ‘nature,’ then, I do mean and have meant that which is the subject-matter of the natural sciences and also of psychology. It may be said to include all that has existed, does exist, or will exist in time. If we consider whether any object is of such a nature that it may be said to exist now, to have existed, or to be about to exist, then we may know that that object is a natural object, and that nothing, of which this is not true, is a natural object. Thus, for instance, of our minds we should say that they did exist yesterday, that they do exist to-day, and n] NATURALISTIC ETHICS 41 probably will exist in a minute or two. We shall say that we had thoughts yesterday, which have ceased to exist now, although their effects may remain: and in so far as those thoughts did exist, they too are natural objects. There is, indeed, no difficulty about the ‘objects’ themselves, in the sense in which I have just used the term. It is easy to say which of them are natural, and which (if any) are not natural. But when we begin to consider the properties of objects, then I fear the problem is more difficult. Which among the properties of natural objects are natural properties and which are not? For I do not deny that good is a property of certain natural objects: certain of them, I think, are good; and yet I have said that ‘good’ itself is not a natural property. Well, my test for these too also concerns their existence in time. Can we imagine ‘good’ as existing hy itself in time, and not merely as a property of some natural object? For myself, I cannot so imagine it, whereas with the greater number of properties of objects — those which I call the natural properties — their existence does seem to me to be independent of the existence of those objects. They are, in fact, rather parts of which the object is made up than mere predicates which attach to it. If they were all taken away, no object would be left, not even a bare substance: for they are in themselves substantial and give to the object all the substance that it has. But this is not so with good. If indeed good were a feeling, as some would have us believe, then it would exist in time. But that is why to call it so is to commit the naturalistic fallacy. It will always remain pertinent to ask, whether the feeling itself is good; and if so, then good cannot itself be identical with any feeling. 27. Those theories of Ethics, then, are ‘naturalistic’ which declare the sole good to consist in some one property of things, which exists in time; and which do so because they suppose that ‘good’ itself can be defined by reference to such a property. > And we may now proceed to consider such theories. And, first of all, one of the most famous of ethical maxims is that which recommends a ‘life according to nature.’ That was the principle of the Stoic Ethics; but, since their Ethics 42 NATURALISTIC ETHICS [chap. has some claim to be called metaphysical, I shall not attempt to deal with it here. But the same phrase reappears in Rousseau; and it is not unfrequently maintained even now that what we ought to do is to live naturally. Now let us examine this contention in its general form. It is obvious, in the first place, that we cannot say that everything natural is good, except perhaps in virtue of some metaphysical theory, such as I shall deal with later. If everything natural is equally good, then certainly Ethics, as it is ordinarily under- stood, disappears: for nothing is more certain, from an ethical point of view, than that some things are bad and others good; the object of Ethics is, indeed, in chief part, to give you general rules whereby you may avoid the one and secure the other. What, then, does ‘natural’ mean, in this advice to live naturally, since it obviously cannot apply to everything that is natural? The phrase seems to point to a vague notion that there is some such thing as natural good; to a belief that Nature may be said to fix and decide what shall be good, just as she fixes and decides what shall exist. For instance, it may be supposed that ‘health’ is susceptible of a natural definition, that Nature has fixed what health shall be: and health, it may be said, is obviously good; hence in this case Nature has decided the matter; we have only to go to her and ask her what health is, and we shall know what is good: we shall have based an ethics upon science. But what is this natural definition of health? I can only conceive that health should be defined in natural terms as the normal state of an organism; for undoubtedly disease is also a natural product. To say that health is what is preserved by evolution, and what itself tends to preserve, in the struggle for existence, the organism which possesses it, comes to the same thing: for the point of evolution is that it pretends to give a causal explanation of why some forms of life are normal and others are abnormal; it explains the origin of species. When therefore we are told that health is natural, we may presume that what is meant is that it is normal; and that when we are told to pursue health as a natural end, what is implied is that the normal n] NATURALISTIC ETHICS 43 must be good. But is it so obvious that the normal must be good? Is it really obvious that health, for instance, is good? Was the excellence of Socrates or of Shakespeare normal? Was it not rather abnormal, extraordinary? It is, I think, obvious in the first place, that not all that is good is normal; that, on the contrary, the abnormal is often better than the normal: peculiar excellence, as well as peculiar viciousness, must obviously be not normal but abnormal. Yet it may be said that nevertheless the normal is good; and I myself am not prepared to dispute that health is good. What I contend is that this must not be taken to be obvious; that it must be regarded as an open question. To declare it to be obvious is to suggest the naturalistic fallacy: just as, in some recent books, a proof that genius is diseased, abnormal, has been used in order to suggest that genius ought not to be encouraged. Such reasoning is fallacious, and dangerously fallacious. The fact is that in the very words ‘health’ and ‘disease’ we do commonly include the notion that the one is good and the other bad. But, when a so-called scientific definition of them is attempted, a definition in natural terms, the only one possible is that by way of ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal.’ Now, it is easy to prove that some things commonly thought excellent are abnormal; and it follows that they are diseased. But it does not follow, except by virtue of the naturalistic fallacy, that those things, commonly thought good, are therefore bad. All that has really been shewn is that in some cases there is a conflict between the common judgment that genius is good, and the common judgment that health is good. It is not sufficiently recognised that the latter judgment has not a whit more warrant for its truth than the former; that both are perfectly open questions. It may be true, indeed, that by ‘healthy’ we do commonly imply ‘good’; but that only shews that when we so use the word, we do not mean the same thing by it as the thing which is meant in medical science. That health, when the word is used to denote something good, is good, goes no way at all to shew that health, when the word is used to denote something normal, is also good. We might as well say that, because ‘bull’ denotes an Irish joke and 44 NATURALISTIC ETHICS [chap. also a certain animal, the joke and the animal must be the same thing. We must not, therefore, be frightened by the assertion that a thing is natural into the admission that it is good; good does not, by definition, mean anything that is natural; and it is therefore always an open question whether anything that is natural is good. 28. But there is another slightly different sense in which the word ‘natural’ is used with an implication that it denotes something good. This is when we speak of natural affections, or unnatural crimes and vices. Here the meaning seems to be, not so much that the action or feeling in question is normal or abnormal, as that it is necessary. It is in this connection that we are advised to imitate savages and beasts. Curious advice certainly; but, of course, there may be something in it. I am not here concerned to enquire under what circumstances some of us might with advantage take a lesson from the cow. I have really no doubt that such exist. What I am concerned with is a certain kind of reason, which I think is sometimes used to support this doctrine — a naturalistic reason. The notion some- times Ipng at the bottom of the minds of preachers of this gospel is that we cannot improve on nature. This notion is certainly true, in the sense that anything we can do, that may be better than the present state of things, will be a natural product. But that is not what is meant by this phrase; nature is again used to mean a mere part of nature; only this time the part meant is not so much the normal as an arbitrary minimum of what is necessary for life. And when this mini- mum is recommended as ‘natural’ — as the way of life to which Nature points her finger — then the naturalistic fallacy is used. Against this position I wish only to point out that though the performance of certain acts, not in themselves desirable, may be excused as necessary means to the preservation of life, that is no reason for praising them, or advising us to limit ourselves to those simple actions which are necessary, if it is possible for us to improve our condition even at the expense of doing what is in this sense unnecessary. Nature does indeed set limits to what is possible; she does control the means we have at our disposal for obtaining what is good; n] NATURALISTIC ETHICS 45 and of this fact, practical Ethics, as we shall see later, must certainly take account: but when she is supposed to have a preference for what is necessary, what is necessary means only what is necessary to obtain a certain end, presupposed as the highest good; and what the highest good is Nature cannot determine. Why should we suppose that what is merely necessary to life is ipso facto better than what is necessary to the study of metaphysics, useless as that study may appear? It may be that life is only worth living, because it enables us to study metaphysics — is a necessary means thereto. The fallacy of this argument from nature has been discovered as long ago as Lucian. ‘I was almost inclined to laugh,’ says Callicratidas, in one of the dialogues imputed to him^, ‘just now, when Charicles was praising irrational brutes and the savagery of the Scythians: in the heat of his argument he was almost repenting that he was born a Greek. What wonder if lions and bears and pigs do not act as I was proposing? That which reasoning would fairly lead a man to choose, cannot be had by creatures that do not reason, simply because they are so stupid. If Prometheus or some other god had given each of them the intelligence of a man, then they would not have lived in deserts and mountains nor fed on one another. They would have built temples just as we do, each would have lived in the centre of his family, and they would have formed a nation bound by mutual laws. Is it anything surprising that brutes, who have had the misfortune to be unable to obtain by fore- thought any of the goods, with which reasoning provides us, should have missed love too? Lions do not love; but neither do they philosophise; bears do not love; but the reason is they do not know the sweets of friendship. It is only men, who, by their wisdom and their knowledge, after many trials, have chosen what is best.’ 29. To argue that a thing is good because it is ‘natural,’ or bad because it is ‘unnatural,’ in these common senses of the term, is therefore certainly fallacious: and yet such arguments are very frequently used. But they do not commonly pretend to give a systematic theory of Ethics. Among attempts to 1 'E/3(jres, 436 — 7. 46 NATUEALISTIC ETHICS [chap. systematise an appeal to nature, that which is now most preva- lent is to be found in the application to ethical questions of the term ‘Evolution’ — in the ethical doctrines which have been called ‘Evolutionistic.’ These doctrines are those which main- tain that the course of ‘evolution,’ while it shews us the direction in which we are developing, thereby and for that reason shews us the direction in which we ought to develop. Writers, who maintain such a doctrine, are at present very numerous and very popular; and I propose to take as my example the writer, who is perhaps the best known of them all — Mr Herbert Spencer. Mr Spencer’s doctrine, it must be owned, does not offer the clearest example of the naturalistic fallacy as used in support of Evolutionistic Ethics. A clearer example might be found in the doctrine of Guyauk a writer who has lately had considerable vogue in France, but who is not so well known as Spencer. Guyau might almost be called a disciple of Spencer; he is frankly evolutionistic, and frankly naturalistic; and I may mention that he does not seem to think that he differs from Spencer by reason of his naturalism. The point in which he has criticised Spencer concerns the question how far the ends of ‘pleasure’ and of ‘increased life’ coincide as motives and means to the attainment of the ideal: he does not seem to think that he differs from Spencer in the fundamental principle that the ideal is ‘ Quantity of life, measured in breadth as well as in length,’ or, as Guyau says, ‘Expansion and intensity of life’; nor in the naturalistic reason which he gives for this principle. And I am not sure that he does differ from Spencer in these points. Spencer does, as I shall shew, use the natural- istic fallacy in details; but with regard to his fundamental principles, the following doubts occur; Is he fundamentally a Hedonist ? And, if so, is he a naturalistic Hedonist? In that case he would better have been treated in my next chapter. Does he hold that a tendency to increase quantity of life is merely a cri- terion of good conduct? Or does he hold that such increase of life is marked out by nature as an end at which we ought to aim? I think his language in various places would give colour to r See Esquisse d'une Morale sans Obligation ni Sanction, par M. Guyau. edition. Paris : P. Alcan, 1896. n] NATURALISTIC ETHICS 47 all these hypotheses; though some of them are mutually incon- sistent. I will try to discuss the main points. 30. The modern vogue of ‘Evolution’ is chiefly owing to Dar^vin’s investigations as to the origin of species. Darwin formed a strictly biological hypothesis as to the manner in which certain forms of animal life became established, while others died out and disappeared. His theory was that this might be accounted for, partly at least, in the following way. When certain varieties occurred (the cause of their occurrence is still, in the main, unknown), it might be that some of the points, in which they varied from their parent species or from other species then existing, made them better able to persist in the environment in which they found themselves — less liable to be killed off. They might, for instance, be better able to endure the cold or heat or changes of the climate; better able to find nourishment from what surrounded them; better able to escape from or resist other species which fed upon them ; better fitted to attract or to master the other sex. Being thus less liable to die, their numbers relatively to other species would increase; and that very increase in their numbers might tend towards the extinction of those other species. This theory, to which Darwin gave the name ‘Natural Selection,’ was also called the theory of survival of the fittest. The natural process which it thus described was called evolution. It was very natural to suppose that evolution meant evolution from what was lower into what was higher; in fact it was observed that at least one species, commonly called higher — the species man — had so survived, and among men again it was supposed that the higher races, our- selves for example, had shewn a tendency to survive the lower, ! such as the North American Indians. We can kill them more j easily than they can kill us. The doctrine of evolution was j then represented as an explanation of how the higher species ' survives the lower. Spencer, for example, constantly uses ‘more evolved’ as equivalent to ‘higher.’ But it is to be noted that this forms no part of Darwin’s scientific theory. That theory will explain, equally well, how by an alteration in the environment (the gradual cooling of the earth, for example) quite a different species from man, a species which we think 48 NATURALISTIC ETHICS [chap. infinitely lower, might survive us. The survival of the fittest does not mean, as one might suppose, the survival of what is fittest to fulfil a good purpose — best adapted to a good end: at the last, it means merely the survival of the fittest to survive; and the value of the scientific theory, and it is a theory of great value, just consists in shewing what are the causes which pro- duce certain biological effects. Whether these effects are good or bad, it cannot pretend to judge. 31. But now let us hear what Mr Spencer says about the application of Evolution to Ethics. ‘I recur,’ he saysh ‘to the main proposition set forth in these two chapters, which has, I think, been fully justified Guided by the truth that as the conduct with which Ethics deals is part of conduct at large, conduct at large must be generally understood before this part can be specially under- stood; and guided by the further truth that to understand conduct at large we must understand the evolutio n of conduct; we have been led to see that Ethics has for its subject-matter, that form which universal conduct assumes during the last stages of its evolution. We have also concluded that these last stages in the evolution of conduct are those displayed by the highest^ type of being when he is forced, by increase of numbers, to live more and more in presence of his fellows. And there has followed the corollary that conduct gains ethical sanction^ in proportion as the activities, becoming less and less militant and more and more industrial, are such as do not necessitate mutual injury or hindrance, but consist with, and are furthered by, co-operation and mutual aid. ‘These implications of the Evolution- Hypothesis, we shall now see harmonize with the leading moral ideas men have otherwise reached.’ Now, if we are to take the last sentence strictly — if the propositions which precede it are really thought by Mr Spencer to be implications of the Evolution-Hypothesis — there can be no doubt that Mr Spencer has committed the naturalistic fallacy. All that the Evolution-Hypothesis tells us is that certain kinds of conduct are more evolved than others; and * Data of Ethics, Chap, ii, § 7, ad fin. * The italics are mine. NATURALISTIC ETHICS 49 n] this is, in fact, all that Mr Spencer has attempted to prove in the two chapters concerned. Yet he tells us that one of the things it has proved i-s that conduct gains ethical sanction in proportion as it displays certain characteristics. What he has tried to prove is only that, in proportion as it displays those characteristics, it is more evolved. It is plain, then, that Mr Spencer identifies the gaining of ethical sanction with the being more evolved: this follows strictly from his words. But Mr Spencer’s language is extremely loose ; and we shall presently see that he seems to regard the view it here implies as false. We cannot, therefore, take it as Mr Spencer’s definite view that ‘better’ means nothing but ‘more evolved’; or even that what is ‘more evolved’ is therefore ‘better.’ But we are entitled to urge that he is influenced by these views, and therefore by the naturalistic fallacy. It is only by the assumption of such influence that we can explain his confusion as to what he has really proved, and the absence of any attempt to prove, what he says he has proved, that conduct which is more evolved is better. We shall look in vain for any attempt to shew that ‘ethical sanction’ is in proportion to ‘evolution,’ or that it is the ‘highest’ type of being which displays the most evolved conduct; yet Mr Spencer concludes that this is the case. It is only fair to assume that he is not sufficiently conscious how much these propositions stand in need of proof — what a very different thing is being ‘more evolved’ from being ‘higher’ or ‘better.’ It may, of course, be true that what is more evolved is also higher and better. But Mr Spencer does not seem aware that to assert the one is in any case not the same thing as to assert the other. He argues at length that certain kinds of conduct are ‘more evolved,’ and then informs us that he has proved them to gain ethical sanction in proportion, without any warning that he has omitted the most essential step in such a proof. Surely this is sufficient evidence that he does not see how essential that step is. 32. W’hatever be the degree of Mr Spencer’s own guilt, what has just been said will serve to illustrate the kind of fallacy which is constantly committed by those who profess to ‘base’ Ethics on Evolution. But we must hasten to add 50 NATURALISTIC ETHICS [chap. that the view which Mr Spencer elsewhere most emphatically recommends is an utterly different one. It will be useful briefly to deal with this, in order that no injustice may be done to Mr Spencer. The discussion will he instructive partly from the lack of clearness, which Mr Spencer displays, as to the relation of this view to the ‘evolutionistic’ one just described; and partly because there is reason to suspect that in this view also he is influenced by the naturalistic fallacy. We have seen that, at the end of his second chapter, Mr Spencer seems to announce that he has already proved certain characteristics of conduct to be a measure of its ethical value. He seems to think that he has proved this merely by considering the evolution of conduct; and he has certainly not given any such proof, unless we are to understand that ‘more evolved’ is a mere synonym for ‘ethically better.’ He now promises merely to confirm this certain conclusion by shewing that it ‘harmonizes with the leading moral ideas men have otherwise reached.’ But, when we turn to his third chapter, we find that what he actually does is something quite different. He here asserts that to establish the conclusion ‘Conduct is better in proportion as it is more evolved’ an entirely new proof is necessary. That conclusion will be false, unless a certain proposition, of which we have heard nothing so far, is true — unless it be true that life is pleasant on the whole. And the ethical proposition, for which he claims the support of the ‘leading moral ideas’ of mankind, turns out to be that ‘life is good or bad, according as it does, or does not, bring a surplus of agreeable feeling’ (§ 10). Here, then, Mr Spencer appears, not as an Evolutionist, but as a Hedonist, in Ethics. No conduct is better, because it is more evolved. Degree of evolution can at most be a criterion of ethical value; and it will only be that, if we can prove the extremely difficult generalisation that the more evolved is always, on the whole, the pleasanter. It is plain that Mr Spencer here rejects the naturalistic identification of ‘better’ with ‘more evolved’; but it is possible that he is influenced by another naturalistic identification — that of ‘good’ with ‘pleasant.’ It is possible that Mr Spencer is a naturalistic Hedonist. n] NATURALISTIC ETHICS 51 33. Let us examine Mr Spencer’s own words. He begins this third chapter by an attempt to shew that we call ‘good the acts conducive to life, in self or others, and bad those which directl}'' or indirectly tend towards death, special or general’ (§ 9). And then he asks: ‘Is there any assumption made’ in so calling them? ‘Yes’; he answers, ‘an assumption of extreme significance has been made — an assumption underlying all moral estimates. The question to be definitely raised and answered before entering on any ethical discussion, is the question of late much agitated — Is life worth living? Shall we take the pessimist view? or shall we take the optimist view?... On the answer to this question depends every decision con- cerning the goodness or badness of conduct.’ But Mr Spencer does not immediately proceed to give the answer. Instead of this, he asks another question: ‘But now, have these irrecon- cilable opinions [pessimist and optimist] anything in common ? ’ And this question he immediately answers by the statement: ‘Yes, there is one postulate in which pessimists and optimists agree. Both their arguments assume it to be self-evident that life is good or bad, according as it does, or does not, bring a surplus of agreeable feeling’ (§ 10). It is to the defence of this statement that the rest of the chapter is devoted; and at the end Mr Spencer formulates his conclusion in the following words: ‘No school can avoid taking for the ultimate moral aim a desirable state of feeling called by whatever name — gratification, enjoyment, happiness. Pleasure somewhere, at some time, to some being or beings, is an inexpugnable element of the conception’ (§16 koXov ev€Ka is a qualification which he allows often to drop out of sight. And, on the other hand, he seems certainly to regard the exer- cise of all virtues as an end in itself. His treatment of Ethics is indeed, in the most important points, highly unsystematic and confused, owing to his attempt to base it on the naturalistic fallacy ; for strictly we should be obliged by his words to regard Oecopia as the only thing good in itself, in which case the good- ness which he attributes to the practical virtues cannot be intrinsic value ; while on the other hand he does not seem to regard it merely as utility, since he makes no attempt to shew that they are means to detopLa. But there seems no doubt that on the whole he regards the exercise of the practical virtues as a good of the same kind as {i.e. having intrinsic value), only in a less degree than, Becopia ; so that he cannot avoid the charge that he recommends as having intrinsic value, such instances of the exercise of virtue as we are at present discussing — instances of a disposition to perform actions which, in the modem phrase, have merely an ‘external rightness.’ That he is right in applying the word ‘virtue’ to such a disposition cannot be doubted. But the protest against the view that ‘external rightness’ is sufficient to constitute either ‘ duty ’ or ‘ virtue ’ — a protest which is V] ETHICS m RELATION TO CONDUCT 177 commonly, and with some justice, attributed as a merit to Christian morals — seems, in the main, to be a mistaken way of pointing out an important truth: namely, that where there is only ‘external rightness’ there is certainly no intrinsic value. It is commonly assumed (though wrongly) that to call a thing a virtue means that it has intrinsic value: and on this assumption the view that virtue does not consist in a mere disposition to do externally right actions does really constitute an advance in ethical truth beyond the Ethics of Aristotle. The inference that, if virtue includes in its meaning ‘good in itself,’ then Aristotle’s definition of virtue is not adequate and expresses a false ethical judgment, is perfectly correct: only the premiss that virtue does include this in its meaning is mis- taken. 107. (b) A man’s character may be such that, when he habitually performs a particular duty, there is, in each case of his performance, present in his mind, a love of some intrinsically good consequence which he expects to produce by his action or a hatred of some intrinsically evil consequence which he hopes to prevent by it. In such a case this love or hatred will generally be part cause of his action, and we maj then call it one of his motives. Where such a feeling as this is present habitually in the performance of duties, it cannot be denied that the state of the man’s mind, in performing it, contains something intrinsic- ally good. Nor can it be denied that, where a disposition to perform duties consists in the disposition to be moved to them by such feelings, we call that disposition a virtue. Here, there- fore, we have instances of virtue, the exercise of which really contains something that is good in itself. And, in general, we may say that wherever a virtue does consist in a disposition to have certain motives, the exercise of that virtue may be intrin- sically good; although the degree of its goodness may vary indefinitely according to the precise nature of the motives and their objects. In so far, then, as Christianity tends to emphasize the importance of motives, of the ‘inward’ disposition with which a right action is done, we may say that it has done a service to Ethics. But it should be noticed that, when Christian Ethics, as represented by the New Testament, are praised for 178 ETHICS IN RELATION TO CONDUCT [chap. this, two distinctions of the utmost importance, which they entirely neglect, are very commonly overlooked. In the first place the New Testament is largely occupied with continuing the tradition of the Hebrew prophets, by recommending such virtues as ‘justice’ and ‘mercy’ as against mere ritual obser- vances; and, in so far as it does this, it is recommending virtues which may be merely good as means, exactly like the Aristotelian virtues. This characteristic of its teaching must therefore be rigorously distinguished from that which consists in its enforce- ment of such a view as that to be angry without a cause is as bad as actually to commit murder. And, in the second place, though the New Testament does praise some things wdiich are only good as means, and others which are good in themselves, it entirely fails to recognise this distinction. Though the state of the man who is angry may be really as bad in itself as that of the murderer, and so far Christ may be right. His language would lead us to suppose that it is also as bad in every way, that it also causes as much evil; and this is utterly false. In short, when Christian Ethics approves, it does not distinguish whether its approval asserts ‘This is a means to good’ or ‘This is good in itself’; and hence it both praises things merely good as means, as if they were good in themselves, and things merely good in themselves as if they were also good as means. Moreover it should be noticed, that if Christian Ethics does draw attention to those elements in virtues which are good in themselves, it is by no means alone in this. The Ethics of Plato are distinguished by upholding, far more clearly and consistently than any other system, the view that intrinsic value belongs exclusively to those states of mind which consist in love of what is good or hatred of what is evil. 108. But (c) the Ethics of Christianity are distinguished from those of Plato by emphasizing the value of one particular motive — that which consists in the emotion excited by the idea, not of any intrinsically good consequences of the action in question, nor even of the action itself, but by that of its right- ness. This idea of abstract ‘rightness’ and the various degrees of the specific emotion excited by it are what constitute the specifically ‘moral sentiment’ or ‘conscience.’ An action seems V] ETHICS IN RELATION TO CONDUCT 179 to be most properly termed ‘internally rights’ solely in virtue of the fact that the agent has previously regarded it as right: the idea of ‘rightness’ must have been present to his mind, but need not necessarily have been among his motives. And we mean by a ‘conscientious’ man, one who, when he deliberates, always has this idea in his mind, and does net act until he believes that his action is right. The presence of this idea and its action as a motive certainly seem to have become more common objects of notice and com- mendation owing to the influence of Christianity; but it is important to observe that there is no ground for the view, which Kant implies, that it is the only motive which the New Testament regards as intrinsically valuable. There seems little doubt that when Christ tells us to ‘Love our neighbours as ourselves,’ He did not mean merely what Kant calls ‘practical love’ — beneficence of which the sole motive is the idea of its rightness, or the emotion caused by that idea. Among the ‘inward dispositions’ of which the New Testament inculcates the value, there are certainly included what Kant terms mere ‘natural inclinations,’ such as pity etc. But what are we to say of virtue, when it consists in a disposition to be moved to the performance of duties by this idea? It seems difficult to deny that the emotion excited by rightness as such has some intrinsic value; and still more difficult to deny that its presence may heighten the value of some wholes into which it enters. But, on the other hand, it certainly has not more value than many of the motives treated in our last section — emotions of love towards things really good in themselves. And as for Kant’s implication that it is the sole good^ this is inconsistent with other of his own views. For he certainly regards it as better to perform the actions, to which he maintains that it prompts us — namely, ‘material’ duties — than to omit them. But, if better at all, then, these actions must be I This sense of the term must be carefully distinguished from that in which the agent’s intention may be said to be ‘ right,’ if only the results he intended would have been the best possible. * Kant, so far as I know, never expressly states this view, but it is implied e.g. in his argument against Heteronomy. 180 ETHICS IN RELATION TO CONDUCT [CHAP. better either in themselves or as a means. The former hypo- thesis would directly contradict the statement that this motive was sole good, and the latter is excluded by Kant himself since he maintains that no actions can cause the existence of this motive. And it may also be observed that the other claim which he makes for it, namely, that it is always good as a means, can also not be maintained. It is as certain as anything can be that very harmful actions may be done from conscientious motives; and that Conscience does not always tell us the truth about what actions are right. Nor can it be maintained even that it is more useful than many other motives. All that can be admitted is that it is one of the things which are generally useful. What more I have to say with regard to those elements in some virtues which are good in themselves, and with regard to their relative degrees of excellence, as well as the proof that all of them together cannot be the sole good, may be deferred to the next chapter. 109. The main points in this chapter, to which I desire to direct attention, may be summarised as follows: — (1) I first pointed out how the subject-matter with which it deals, namely, ethical judgments on conduct, involves a question, utterly different in kind from the two previously discussed, namely: (a) What is the nature of the predicate peculiar to Ethics? and (6) What kinds of things themselves possess this predicate? Practical Ethics asks, not ‘What ought to be?’ but ‘What ought we to do?’; it asks what actions are duties, what actions are right, and what wrong: and all these questions can only be answered by shewing the relation of the actions in question, as causes or necessary conditions, to what is good in itself. The enquiries of Practical Ethics thus fall entirely under the third division of ethical questions — questions which ask, ‘What is good as a means?’ which is equivalent to ‘What is a means to good — what is cause or necessary condition of things good in themselves?’ (86 — 88). But (2) it asks this question, almost exclusively, with regard to actions which it is possible for most men to perform, if only they will them; and with regard to these, it does not ask merely, which among them will have some V] ETHICS IN RELATION TO CONDUCT 181 good or bad result, but which, among all the actions possible to volition at any moment, will produce the best total result. To assert that an action is a duty, is to assert that it is such a possible action, which will always, in certain known cir- cumstances, produce better results than any other. It follows that universal propositions of which duty is predicate, so far from being self-evident, always require a proof, which it is be}mnd our present means of knowledge ever to give (89 — 92). But (3) all that Ethics has attempted or can attempt, is to shew that certain actions, possible by volition, generally produce better or worse total results than any probable alternative ; and it must obviously be very difficult to shew this with regard to the total results even in a comparatively near future ; whereas that what has the best results in such a near future, also has the best on the whole, is a point requiring an investigation which it has not received. If it is true, and if, accordingly, we give the name of ‘ duty ’ to actions which generally produce better total results in the near future than any possible alternative, it may be possible to prove that a few of the commonest rules of duty are true, but only in certain conditions of society, which may be more or less universally presented in history ; and such a proof is only possible in some cases without a correct judgment of what things are good or bad in themselves — a judgment which has never yet been offered by ethical writers. With regard to actions of which the general utility is thus proved, the individual should always perform them ; but in other cases, where rules are commonly offered, he should rather judge of the probable results in his particular case, guided by a correct conception of what things are intrinsically good or bad (93 — 100). (4) In order that any action may be shewn to be a duty, it must be shewn to fulfil the above conditions ; but the actions commonly called ‘ duties ’ do not fulfil them to any greater extent than ‘ expedient ’ or ' interested ’ actions : by calling them ‘ duties ’ we only mean that they have, in addition, certain non-ethical predicates. Similarly by ‘ virtue ’ is mainly meant a permanent disposition to perform ‘ duties ’ in this restricted 182 ETHICS IN RELATION TO CONDUCT [CHAP. V sense: and accordingly a virtue, if it is really a virtue, must be good as a means, in the sense that it fulfils the above conditions ; but it is not better as a means than non- virtuous dispositions; it generally has no value in itself; and, where it has, it is far from being the sole good or the best of goods. Accordingly ‘virtue’ is not, as is commonly implied, an unique ethical predicate (101—109). CHAPTER VI. THE IDEAL. 110. The title of this chapter is amhiguous. When we call a state of things ‘ ideal ’ we may mean three distinct things, which have only this in common : that we always do mean to assert, of the state of things in question, nob only that it is good in itself, but that it is good in itself in a much higher degree than many other things. The first of these meanings of ‘ideal’ is (1) that to which the phrase ‘The Ideal’ is most properly confined. By this is meant the best state of things conceivable, the Summum Bonum or Absolute Good. It is in this sense that a right conception of Heaven would be a right conception of the Ideal : we mean by the Ideal a state of things which would be absolutely perfect. But this con- ception may be quite clearly distinguished from a second, namely, (2) that of the best 'possible state of things in this world. This second conception may be identified with that which has frequently figured in philosophy as the ‘ Human Good,’ or the ultimate end towards which our action should be directed. It is in this sense that Utopias are said to be Ideals. The constructor of an Utopia may suppose many things to be possible, which are in fact impossible; but he always assumes that some things, at least, are rendered impos- sible by natural laws, and hence his construction differs essentially from one which may disregard all natural laws, however certainly established. At all events the question ‘ What is the best state of things which we could possibly bring about ? ’ is quite distinct from the question ‘ What would be the best state of things conceivable ? ’ But, thirdly, we may meam 184 THE IDEAL [chap. by calling a state of things ‘ideal’ merely (3) that it is good in itself in a high degree. And it is obvious that the question what things are ‘ ideal ’ in this sense is one which must be answered before we can pretend to settle what is the Absolute or the Human Good. It is with the Ideal, in this third sense, that this chapter will be principally concerned. Its main object is to arrive at some positive answer to the fundamental question of Ethics — the question : ‘ What things are goods or ends in themselves ? ’ To this question we have hitherto obtained only a negative answer: the answer that pleasure is certainly not the sole good. 111. I have just said that it is upon a correct answer to this question that correct answers to the two other questions. What is the Absolute Good ? and What is the Human Good ? must depend ; and, before proceeding to discuss it, it may be well to point out the relation which it has to these two questions. (1) It is just possible that the Absolute Good may be entirely composed of qualities which we cannot even imagine. This is possible, because, though we certainly do know a great many things that are good-in-themselves, and good in a high degree, yet what is best does not necessarily contain all the good things there are. That this is so follows from the principle explained in Chap. I. (§§ 18 — 22), to which it was there proposed that the name ‘ principle of organic unities ’ should be confined. This principle is that the intrinsic value of a whole is neither identical with nor proportional to the sum of the values of its parts. It follows from this that, though in order to obtain the greatest possible sum of values in its parts, the Ideal would necessarily contain all the things which have intrinsic value in any degree, yet the whole which contained all these parts might not be so valuable as some other whole, from which certain positive goods were omitted. But if a whole, which does not contain all positive goods, may yet be better than a whole which does, it follows that the best whole may be one, which contains none of the positive goods with which we are acquainted. It is, therefore, possible that we cannot discover what VI] THE IDEAL 185 the Ideal is. But it is plain that, though this possibility cannot be denied, no one can have any right to assert that it is realised — that the Ideal is something unimaginable. We cannot judge of the comparative values of things, unless the things we judge are before our minds. We cannot, there- fore, be entitled to assert that anything, which we cannot imagine, would be better than some of the things which we can; although we are also not entitled to deny the possibility that this may be the case. Consequently our search for the Ideal must be hmited to a search for that one, among all the wholes composed of elements known to us, which seems to be better than all the rest. We shall never be entitled to assert that this whole is Perfection, but we shall be entitled to assert that it is better than any other which may be presented as a rival. But, since anything which we can have any reason to think ideal must be composed of things that are known to us, it is plain that a comparative valuation of these must be our chief instrument for deciding what is ideal. The best ideal we can construct will be that state of things which contains the greatest number of things having positive value, and which contains nothing evil or indifferent — 'provided that the presence of none of these goods, or the absence of things evil or indifferent, seems to diminish the value of the whole. And, in fact, the chief defect of such attempts as have been made by philosophers to construct an Ideal — to describe the Kingdom of Heaven — seems to consist in the fact that they omit many things of very great positive value, although it is plain that this omission does not enhance the value of the whole. Where this is the case, it may be confidently asserted that the ideal proposed is not ideal. And the review of positive goods, which I am about to undertake, will, I hope, shew that no ideals yet proposed are satisfactory. Great positive goods, it will appear, are so numerous, that any whole, which shall contain them all, must be of vast complexity. And though this fact renders it dif6.cult, or, humanly speaking, impossible, to decide what is The Ideal, what is the absolutely best state of things imaginable, it is sufficient to condemn those Ideals, which 186 THE IDEAL [chap. are formed by omission, without any visible gain in consequence of such omission. Philosophers seem usually to have sought only for the best of single things; neglecting the fact that a whole composed of two great goods, even though one of these be obviously inferior to the other, may yet be often seen to be decidedly superior to either by itself. (2) On the other hand, Utopias — attempted descriptions of a Heaven upon Earth — commonly suffer not only from this, but also from the opposite defect. They are commonly con- structed on the principle of merely omitting the great positive evils, which exist at present, with utterly inadequate regard to the goodness of what they retain : the so-called goods, to which they have regard, are, for the most part, things which are, at best, mere means to good — things, such as freedom, without which, possibly, nothing very good can exist in this world, but which are of no value in themselves and are by no means certain even to produce anything of value. It is, of course, necessary to the purpose of their authors, whose object is merely to construct the best that may be possible in this world, that they should include, in the state of things which they describe, many things, which are themselves indifferent, but which, according to natural laws, seem to be absolutely necessary for the existence of anything which is good. But, in fact, they are apt to include many things, of which the necessity is by no means apparent, under the mistaken idea that these things are goods-in-themselves, and not merely, here and now, a means to good : while, on the other hand, they also omit from their description great positive goods, of which the attainment seems to be quite as possible as many of the changes which they recommend. That is to say, conceptions of the Human Good commonly err, not only, like those of the Absolute Good, in omitting some great goods, but also by including things indifferent; and they both omit and include in cases where the limitations of natural necessity, by the consideration of which they are legitimately differentiated from conceptions of the Absolute Good, will not justify the omission and inclusion. It is, in fact, obvious that in order to decide correctly at what state of things we ought to aim, we must not VI] THE IDEAL 187 only consider what results it is possible for us to obtain, but also which, among equally possible results, will have the greatest value. And upon this second enquiry the comparative valuation of known goods has a no less important bearing than upon the investigation of the Absolute Good. 112. The method which must be employed in order to decide the question ‘ What things have intrinsic value, and in what degrees?’ has already been explained in Chap. III. (§§5.5, 57). In order to arrive at a correct decision on the first part of this question, it is necessary to consider what things are such that, if they existed hy themselves, in absolute isolation, we should yet judge their existence to be good; and, in order to decide upon the relative degrees of value of different things, we must similarly consider what comparative value seems to attach to the isolated existence of each. By employing this method, we shall guard against two errors, which seem to have been the chief causes which have vitiated previous conclusions on the subject. The first of these is (1) that which consists in supposing that what seems absolutely necessary here and now, for the existence of anything good — what we cannot do with- out — is therefore good in itself. If we isolate such things, which are mere means to good, and suppose a world in which they alone, and nothing but they, existed, their intrinsic worthlessness becomes apparent. And, secondly, there is the more subtle error (2) which consists in neglecting the principle of organic unities. This error is committed, when it is supposed, that, if one part of a whole has no intrinsic value, the value of the whole must reside entirely in the other parts. It has, in this way, been commonly supposed, that, if all valuable wholes could be seen to have one and only one common property, the wholes must be valuable solely because they possess this property ; and the illusion is greatly strengthened, if the common property in question seems, considered by itself, to have more value than the other parts of such wholes, considered by themselves. But, if we consider the property in question, in isolation, and then compare it with the whole, of which it forms a part, it may become easily apparent that, existing by itself, the property in question has not nearly 188 THE IDEAL [chap. SO much value, as has the whole to which it belongs. Thus, if we compare the value of a certain amount of pleasure, existing absolutely by itself, with the value of certain ‘ enjoy- ments,’ containing an equal amount of pleasure, it may become apparent that the ‘enjoyment’ is much better than the pleasure, and also, in some cases, much worse. In such a case it is plain that the ‘ enjoyment ’ does not owe its value solely to the pleasure it contains, although it might easily have appeared to do so, when we only considered the other constituents of the enjoyment, and seemed to see that, without the pleasure, they would have had no value. It is now apparent, on the contrary, that the whole ‘ enjoyment ’ owes its value quite equally to the presence of the other constituents, even though it may be true that the pleasure is the only constituent having any value by itself. And similarly, if we are told that all things owe their value solely to the fact that they are ‘ realisations of the true self,’ we may easily refute this statement, by asking whether the predicate that is meant by ‘ realising the true self,’ supposing that it could exist alone, would have any value whatsoever. Either the thing, which does ‘realise the true self,’ has intrinsic value or it has not ; and if it has, then it certainly does not owe its value solely to the fact that it realises the true self. 113. If, now, we use this method of absolute isolation, and guard against these errors, it appears that the question we have to answer is far less difficult than the controversies of Ethics might have led us to expect. Indeed, once the meaning of the question is clearly understood, the answer to it, in its main outlines, appears to be so obvious, that it runs the risk of seeming to be a platitude. By far the most valuable things, j which we know or can imagine, are certain states of conscious- ' ness, which may be roughly described as the pleasures of human ; intercourse and the enjoyment of beautiful objects. No one,' probably, who has asked himself the question, has ever doubted that personal affection and the appreciation of what is beautiful in Art or Nature, are good in themselves ; nor, if we consider strictly what things are worth having purely for their own sakes, does it appear probable that any one will think that VI] THE IDEAL 189 anything else has nearly so great a value as the things which are included under these two heads. I have myself urged in Chap. III. (§ 50) that the mere existence of what is beautiful does appear to have some intrinsic value; but I regard it as indubitable that Prof. Sidgwick was so far right, in the view there discussed, that such mere existence of what is beautiful has value, so small as to be negligible, in comparison with that which attaches to the consciousness of beauty. This simple truth may, indeed, be said to be universally recognised. What has not been recognised is that it is the ultimate and funda- mental truth of Moral Philosophy. That it is only for the sake ' of these things — in order that as much of them as possible may at some time exist — that any one can be justified in performing any public or private duty ; that they are the raison d’etre of virtue; that it is they — these complex wholes themselves, and not any constituent or characteristic of them — that form ‘ the rational ultimate end of human action and the sole criterion 1 of social progress : these appear to be truths which have been ; generally overlooked. That they are truths — that personal affections and aesthetic enjoyments include all the greatest, and by far the greatest, goods we can imagine, will, I hope, appear more plainly in the course of that analysis of them, to which I shall now proceed. All the things, which I have meant to include under the above descriptions, are highly complex organic unities’, and in dis- cussing the consequences, which follow from this fact, and the elements of which they are composed, I may hope at the same time both to confirm and to define my position. 114. I. I propose to begin by examining what I have called aesthetic enjoyments, since the case of personal affections presents some additional complications. It is, I think, uni- versally admitted that the proper appreciation of a beautiful object is a good thing in itself; and my question is; What are the main elements included in such an appreciation ? (1) It is plain that in those instances of aesthetic apprecia- tion, which we think most valuable, there is included, not merely a bare cognition of what is beautiful in the object, but also some kind of feeling or emotion. It is not sufiScient that 190 THE IDEAL [chap. a man should merely see the beautiful qualities in a picture and know that they are beautiful, in order that we may give his state of mind the highest praise. We require that he should also appreciate the beauty of that which he sees and which he knows to be beautiful — that he should feel and see its beauty. And by these expressions we certainly mean that he should have an appropriate emotion towards the beautiful quahties which he cognises. It is perhaps the case that aU aesthetic emotions have some common quality; but it is certain that differences in the emotion seem to be appropriate to differ- ences in the kind of beauty perceived: and by saying that different emotions are appropriate to different kinds of beauty, we mean that the whole which is formed by the consciousness of that kind of beauty together with the emotion appropriate to it, is better than if any other emotion had been felt in contem- plating that particular beautiful object. Accordingly we have a large variety of different emotions, each of which is a necessary constituent in some state of consciousness which we judge to be good. All of these emotions are essential elements in great positive goods; they are parts of organic wholes, which have great intrinsic value. But it is important to observe that these wholes are organic, and that, hence, it does not follow that the emotion, by itself, would have any value whatsoever, nor yet that, if it were directed to a different object, the whole thus formed might not be positively bad. And, in fact, it seems to be the case that if we distinguish the emotional element, in any aesthetic appreciation, from the cognitive element, which accompanies it and is, in fact, commonly thought of as a part of the emotion; and if we consider what value this emotional element would have, existing by itself, we can hardly think that it has any great value, even if it has any at all. Whereas, if the same emotion be directed to a different object, if, for instance, it is felt towards an object that is positively ugly, the whole state of consciousness is certainly often positively bad in a high degree. 115. (2) In the last paragraph I have pointed out the two facts, that the presence of some emotion is necessary to give any very high value to a state of aesthetic appreciation, and VI] THE IDEAL 191 that, on the other hand, this same emotion, in itself, may have little or no value : it follows that these emotions give to the wholes of which they form a part a value far greater than that which they themselves possess. The same is obviously true of the cognitive element Avhich must be combined with these emotions in order to form these highly valuable wholes ; and the present paragraph will attempt to define what is meant by this cognitive element, so far as to guard against a possible misunderstanding. When we talk of seeing a beautiful object, or, more generally, of the cognition or consciousness of a beautiful object, we may mean by these expressions something which forms no part of any valuable whole. There is an ambiguity in the use of the term ‘ object,’ which has probably been responsible for as many enormous errors in philosophy and psychology as any other single cause. This ambiguity may easily be detected by considering the proposition, which, though a contradiction in terms, is obviously true ; That when a man sees a beautiful picture, he may see nothing beautiful w'hatever. The ambiguity consists in the fact that, by the ‘object’ of vision (or cognition), may be meant either the qualities actually seen or all the qualities possessed by the thing seen. Thus in our case : when it is said that the picture is beautiful, it is meant that it contains qualities which are beautiful ; when it is said that the man sees the picture, it is meant that he sees a great number of the qualities contained in the picture; and when it is said that, nevertheless, he sees nothing beautiful, it is meant that he does not see those qualities of the picture which are beautiful. When, therefore, I speak of the cognitiou of a beautiful object, as an essential element in a valuable aesthetic appreciation, I must be understood to mean only the cognition of the beautiful qualities possessed by that object, and not the cognition of other qualities of the object possessing them. And this distinction must itself be carefully distinguished from the other distinction expressed above by the distinct terms ‘ seeing the beauty of a thing’ and ‘seeing its beautiful qualities.’ By ‘seeing the beauty of a thing’ we commonly mean the having an emotion towards its beautiful qualities ; w'hereas in the ‘seeing of its beautiful qualities’ we do not include any emotion. 192 THE IDEAL [chap. By the cognitive element, which is equally necessary with emotion to the existence of a valuable appreciation, I mean merely the actual cognition or consciousness of any or all of an object’s beautiful qualities — that is to say any or all of those elements in the object which possess any positive beauty. That such a cognitive element is essential to a valuable whole may be easily seen, by asking ; What value should we attribute to the proper emotion excited by hearing Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, if that emotion were entirely unaccompanied by any consciousness, either of the notes, or of the melodic and harmonic relations between them ? And that the mere hearing of the Symphony, even accompanied by the appropriate emotion, is not sufficient, may be easily seen, if we consider what would be the state of a man, who should hear all the notes, but should not be aware of any of those melodic and harmonic relations, which are necessary to constitute the smallest beautiful elements in the Symphony. 116. (3) Connected with the distinction just made between ‘object’ in the sense of the qualities actually before the mind, and ‘ object ’ in the sense of the whole thing which possesses the qualities actually before the mind, is another distinction of the utmost importance for a correct analysis of the con- stituents necessary to a valuable whole. It is commonly and rightly thought that to see beauty in a thing which has no beauty is in some way inferior to seeing beauty in that which really has it. But under this single description of ‘seeing beauty in that which has no beauty,’ two very different facts, and facts of very different value, may be included. We may mean either the attribution to an object of really beautiful qualities which it does not possess or the feeling towards qualities, which the object does possess but which are in reality not beautiful, an emotion which is appropriate only to qual- ities really beautiful. Both these facts are of very frequent occurrence ; and in most instances of emotion both no doubt occur together; but they are obviously quite distinct, and the distinction is of the utmost importance for a correct estimate of values. The former may be called an error of judgment, and the latter an error of taste; but it is VI] THE IDEAL 193 important to observe that the ‘error of taste’ commonly involves a false judgment of value; whereas the ‘error of judgment’ is merely a false judgment of fact. Now the case which I have called an error of taste, namely, where the actual qualities we admire (whether possessed by the ‘object’ or not) are ugly, can in any case have no value, except such as may belong to the emotion by itself; and in most, if not in all, cases it is a considerable positive evil. In this sense, then, it is undoubtedly right to think that seeing beauty in a thing which has no beauty is inferior in value to seeing beauty where beauty really is. But the other case is much more difficult. In this case there is present all that I have hitherto mentioned as necessary to constitute a great positive good: there is a cognition of qualities really beautiful, together with an appropriate emotion towards these qualities. There can, therefore, be no doubt that we have here a great positive good. But there is present also something else ; namely, a belief that these beautiful qualities exist, and that they exist in a certain relation to other things — namely, to some properties of the object to which we attribute these qualities: and further the object of this belief is false. And we may ask, with regard to the whole thus constituted, whether the presence of the belief, and the fact that what is believed is false, make any difference to its value? We thus get three different cases of which it is very important to determine the relative values. Where both the cognition of beautiful qualities and the appropriate emotion are present we may also have either, (1) a belief in the existence of these qualities, of which the object, i.e. that they exist, is true : or (2) a mere cognition, without belief, when it is (a) true, (6) false, that the object of the cognition, i.e. the beautiful qualities, exists : or (3) a belief in the existence of the beautiful qualities, when they do not exist. The importance of these cases arises from the fact that the second defines the pleasures of imagination, including a great part of the appreciation of those works of art which are representative ; whereas the first contrasts with these the appreciation of what is beautiful in Nature, and the human affections. The third, on the other hand, is contrasted with 194 THE IDEAL [chap. both, in that it is chiefly exemplified in what is called misdirected affection ; and it is possible also that the love of God, in the case of a believer, should fall under this head. 117. Now all these three cases, as I have said, have something in common, namely, that, in them all, we have a cognition of really beautiful qualities together with an appropriate emotion towards those qualities. I think, therefore, it cannot be doubted (nor is it commonly doubted) that all three include great positive goods ; they are all things of which we feel convinced that they are worth having for their own sakes. And I think that the value of the second, in either of its two subdivisions, is precisely the same as the value of the element common to all three. In other words, in the case of purely imaginative appreciations we have merely the cognition of really beautiful qualities together with the appropriate emotion; and the question, whether the object cognised exists or not, seems here, where there is no belief either in its existence or in its non-existence, to make absolutely no differ- ence to the value of the total state. But it seems to me that the two other cases do differ in intrinsic value both from this one and from one another, even though the object cognised and the appropriate emotion should be identical in all three cases. I think that the additional presence of a belief in the reality of the object makes the total state much better, if the belief is true ; and worse, if the belief is false. In short, where there is belief, in the sense in which we do believe in the existence of Nature and horses, and do not believe in the existence of an ideal landscape and unicorns, the truth of what is believed does make a great difference to the value of the organic whole. If this be the case, we shall have vindicated the belief that knowledge, in the ordinary sense, as distinguished on the one hand from belief in what is false and on the other from the mere awareness of what is true, does contribute towards intrinsic value — that, at least in some cases, its presence as a part makes a whole more valuable than it could have been without. Now I think there can be no doubt that we do judge that VI] THE IDEAL 195 there is a difference of value, such as I have indicated, between the three cases in question. We do think that the emotional contemplation of a natural scene, supposing its qualities equally beautiful, is in some way a better state of things than that of a painted landscape : we think that the world would be improved if we could substitute for the best works of representative art real objects equally beautiful. And similarly we regard a misdirected affection or admiration, even where the error involved is a mere error of judgment and not an error of taste, as in some way unfortunate. And further, those, at least, who have a strong respect for truth, are inclined to think that a merely poetical contemplation of the Kingdom of Heaven would be superior to that of the religious believer, if it were the case that the Kingdom of Heaven does not and will not really exist. Most persons, on a sober, reflective judgment, would feel some hesitation even in preferring the felicity of a madman, convinced that the world was ideal, to the condition either of a poet imagining an ideal world, or of themselves enjoying and appreciating the lesser goods which do and will exist. But, in order to assure ourselves that these judgments are really iudgments of intrinsic value upon the question before us, and to satisfy ourselves that they are correct, it is necessary clearly to distinguish our question from two others which have a very important bearing upon our total judgment of the cases in question. 118. In the first place (a) it is plain that, where we believe, the question whether what we believe is true or false, will generally have a most important bearing upon the value of our belief as a means. Where we believe, we are apt to act upon our belief, in a way in which we do not act upon our cognition of the events in a novel. The truth of what we believe is, therefore, very important as preventing the pains of disappoint- ment and still more serious consequences. And it might be thought that a misdirected attachment was unfortunate solely for this reason : that it leads us to count upon results, which the real nature of its object is not of a kind to ensure. So too the Love of God, where, as usual, it includes the belief that he will annex to certain actions consequences, either in this life or 196 THE IDEAL [chap. the next, which the course of nature gives no reason to expect, may lead the believer to perform actions of which the actual consequences, supposing no such God to exist, may be much worse than he might otherwise have effected: and it might be thought that this was the sole reason (as it is a sufficient one) why we should hesitate to encourage the Love of God, in the absence of any proof that he exists. And similarly it may be thought that the only reason why beauty in Nature should be held superior to an equally beautiful landscape or imagina- tion, is that its existence would ensure greater permanence and frequency in our emotional contemplation of that beauty. It is, indeed, certain that the chief importance of most knowledge — of the truth of most of the things which we believe — does, in this world, consist in its extrinsic advantages: it is immensely valuable as a means. And secondly, (6) it may be the case that the existence of that which we contemplate is itself a great positive good, so that, for this reason alone, the state of things described by saying, that the object of our emotion really exists, would be intrinsically superior to that in which it did not. This reason for superiority is undoubtedly of great importance in the case of human affections, where the object of our admiration is the mental qualities of an admirable person ; for that two such admirable persons should exist is greatly better than that there should be only one : and it would also discriminate the admira- tion of inanimate nature from that of its representations in art, in so far as we may allow a small intrinsic value to the existence of a beautiful object, apart from any contemplation of it. But it is to be noticed that this reason would not account for any difference in value between the cases where the truth was believed and that in which it was merely cognised, without either belief or disbelief In other words, so far as this reason goes, the difference between the two subdivisions of our second class (that of imaginative contemplation) would be as great as between our first class and the second subdivision of our second. The superiority of the mere cognition of a beautiful object, when that object also happened to exist, over the same cognition when the object did not exist, would. VI] THE IDEAL 197 on this count, be as great as that of the knowledge of a beautiful object over the mere imagination of it. 119. These two reasons for discriminating between the value of the three cases we are considering, must, I say, be carefully distinguished from that, of which I am now questioning the validity, if we are to obtain a correct answer concerning this latter. The question I am putting is this: Whether the whole constituted by the fact that there is an emotional contemplation of a beautiful object, which both is believed to be and is real, does not derive some of its value from the fact that the object is real ? I am asking whether the value of this whole, as a whole, is not greater than that of those which differ from it, either by the absence of belief, with or without truth, or, belief being present, by the mere absence of truth? I am not asking either whether it is not superior to them as a means (which it certainly is), nor whether it may not contain a more valuable part, namely, the existence of the object in question. My question is solely whether the existence of its object does not constitute an addition to the value of the whole, quite distinct from the addition constituted by the fact that this whole does contain a valuable part. If, now, we put this question, I cannot avoid thinking that it should receive an affirmative answer. We can put it clearly by the method of isolation; and the sole decision must rest with our reflective judgment upon it, as thus clearly put. We can guard against the bias produced by a consideration of value as a means by supposing the case of an illusion as complete and permanent as illusions in this world never can be. We can imagine the case of a single person, enjoying throughout eternity the contemplation of scenery as beautiful, and intercourse with persons as admirable, as can be imagined; while yet the whole of the objects of his cognition are absolutely unreal. I think we should definitely pronounce the existence of a universe, which consisted solely of such a person, to be greatly inferior in value to one in which the objects, in the existence of which he believes, did really exist just as he believes them to do; and that it would be thus inferior not only because it would lack the goods which consist in the existence of the objects in question, but also 198 THE IDEAL [chap. merely because his belief would be false. That it would be inferior for this reason alone follows if we admit, what also appears to me certain, that the case of a person, merely imagining, without believing, the beautiful objects in question, would, although these objects really existed, be yet inferior to that of the person who also believed in their existence. For here all the additional good, which consists in the existence of the objects, is present, and yet there still seems to be a great difference in value between this case and that in which their existence is believed. But I think that my conclusion may perhaps be exhibited in a more convincing light by the following considerations. (1) It does not seem to me that the small degree of value which we may allow to the existence of beautiful inanimate objects is nearly equal in amount to the difference which I feel that there is between the appreciation (accompanied by belief) of such objects, when they really exist, and the purely imaginative appreciation of them when they do not exist. This inequality is more difficult to verify where the object is an admirable person, since a great value must be allowed to his existence. But yet I think it is not paradoxical to maintain that the superiority of reciprocal affection, where both objects are worthy and both exist, over an unreciprocated affection, where both are worthy but one does not exist, does not lie solely in the fact that, in the former case, we have two good things instead of one, but also in the fact that each is such as the other believes him to be. (2) It seems to me that the important contribution to value made by true belief maybe very plainly seen in the following case. Suppose that a worthy object of affection does really exist and is believed to do so, but that there enters into the case this error of fact, that the qualities loved, though exactly like, are yet not the same which really do exist. This state of things is easily imagined, and I think we cannot avoid pronouncing that, although both persons here exist, it is yet not so satisfactory as where the very person loved and believed to exist is also the one which actually does exist. 120. If all this be so, we have, in this third section, added to our two former results the third result that a true belief in the reality of an object greatly increases the value of many VI] THE IDEAL 199 valuable wholes. Just as in sections (1) and (2) it was main- tained that aesthetic and afifectionate emotions had little or no value apart from the cognition of appropriate objects, and that the cognition of these objects had little or no value apart from the appropriate emotion, so that the whole, in which both were combined, had a value greatly in excess of the sum of the values of its parts; so, according to this section, if there be added to these wholes a true belief in the reality of the object, the new whole thus formed has a value greatly in excess of the sum obtained by adding the value of the true belief, considered in itself, to that of our original wholes. This new case only differs from the former in this, that, whereas the true belief, by itself, has quite as little value as either of the two other constituents taken singly, yet they, taken together, seem to form a whole of very great value, whereas this is not the case with the two wholes which might be formed by adding the true belief to either of the others. The importance of the result of this section seems to lie mainly in two of its consequences. (1) That it affords some justification for the immense intrinsic value, which seems to be commonly attributed to the mere knowledge of some truths, and w'hich was expressly attributed to some kinds of knowledge by Plato and Aristotle. Perfect knowledge has indeed competed with perfect love for the position of Ideal. If the results of this section are correct, it appears that knowledge, though having little or no value by itself, is an absolutely essential constituent in the highest goods, and contributes immensely to their value. And it appears that this function may be performed not only by that case of knowledge, which we have chiefly considered, namely, knowledge of the reality of the beautiful object cognised, but also by knowledge of the numerical identity of this object with that which really exists, and by the knowledge that the existence of that object is truly good. Indeed all knowledge, which is directly concerned with the nature of the constituents of a beautiful object, would seem capable of adding greatly to the value of the contemplation of that object, although, by itself, such knowledge would have no value at all. — And (2) The second important consequence, which follows from this section. 200 THE IDEAL [chap. is that the presence of true belief may, in spite of a great inferiority in the value of the emotion and the beauty of its object, constitute with them a whole equal or superior in value to wholes, in which the emotion and beauty are superior, but in which a true belief is wanting or a false belief present. In this way we may justify the attribution of equal or superior value to an appreciation of an inferior real object, as compared with the appreciation of a greatly superior object which is a mere creature of the imagination. Thus a just appreciation of nature and of real persons may maintain its equality with an equally just appreciation of the products of artistic imagination, in spite of much greater beauty in the latter. And similarly though God may be admitted to be a more perfect object than any actual human being, the love of God may yet be inferior to human love, if God does not exist. 121. (4) In order to complete the discussion of this first class of goods — goods which have an essential reference to beautiful objects — it would be necessary to attempt a classi- fication and comparative valuation of all the different forms of beauty, a task which properly belongs to the study called Aesthetics. I do not, however, propose to attempt any part of this task. It must only be understood that I intend to include among the essential constituents of the goods I have been discussing, every form and variety of beautiful object, if only it be truly beautiful ; and, if this be understood, I think it may be seen that the consensus of opinion with regard to what is positively beautiful and what is positively ugly, and even with regard to great differences in degree of beauty, is quite sufficient to allow us a hope that we need not greatly err in our judgments of good and evil. In anything which is thought beautiful by any considerable number of persons, there is probably some beautiful quality; and differences of opinion seem to be far more often due to exclusive attention, on the part of different persons, to different qualities in the same object, than to the positive error of supposing a quality that is ugly to be really beautiful. When an object, which some think beautiful, is denied to be so by others, the truth is usually that it lacks some beautiful quality or is deformed by VI] THE IDEAL 201 some ugly one, which engage the exclusive attention of the critics. I may, however, state two general principles, closely con- nected with the results of this chapter, the recognition of which would seem to be of great importance for the investigation of what things are truly beautiful. The first of these is (1) a definition of beauty, of what is meant by saying that a thing is truly beautiful. The naturalistic fallacy has been quite as commonly committed with regard to beauty as with regard to good : its use has introduced as many errors into Aesthetics as into Ethics. It has been even more commonly supposed that the beautiful may be defoied as that which produces certain effects upon our feelings ; and the conclusion which folloAvs from this — namely, that judgments of taste are merely subjective — that precisely the same thing may, according to circumstances, be both beautiful and not beautiful — has very frequently been drawn. The conclusions of this chapter suggest a definition of beauty, which may partially explain and entirely remove the difficulties which have led to this error. It appears probable that the beautiful should be defined as that of which the admiring con- templation is good in itself. That is to say : To assert that a thing is beautiful is to assert that the cognition of it is an essential element in one of the intrinsically valuable wholes we have been discussing; so that the question, whether it is truly beautiful or not, depends upon the objective question whether the whole in question is or is not truly good, and does not depend upon the question whether it would or would not excite particular feelings in particular persons. This definition has the double recommendation that it accounts both for the apparent connection between goodness and beauty and for the no less apparent difference between these two conceptions. It appears, at first sight, to be a strange coincidence, that there should be two different objective predicates of value, ‘good’ and ‘beautiful,’ which are nevertheless so related to one another that whatever is beautiful is also good. But, if our definition be correct, the strangeness disappears ; since it leaves only one unanalysable predicate of value, namely ‘ good,’ while ‘ beautiful,’ though not identical with, is to be defined by reference to this, 202 THE IDEAL [chap. being thus, at the same time, different from and necessarily connected with it. In short, on this view, to say that a thing is beautiful is to say, not indeed that it is itself good, but that it is a necessary element in something which is : to prove that a thing is truly beautiful is to prove that a whole, to which it bears a particular relation as a part, is truly good. And in this way we should explain the immense predominance, among objects commonly considered beautiful, of material objects — objects of the external senses; since these objects, though themselves having, as has been said, little or no intrinsic value, are yet essential constituents in the largest group of wholes which have intrinsic value. These wholes themselves may be, and are, also beautiful ; but the comparative rarity, with which we regard them as themselves objects of contemplation, seems suffi- cient to explain the association of beauty with external objects. And secondly (2) it is to be observed that beautiful objects are themselves, for the most part, organic unities, in this sense, that they are wholes of great complexity, such that the con- templation of any part, by itself, may have no value, and yet that, unless the contemplation of the whole includes the con- templation of that part, it will lose in value. From this it follows that there can be no single criterion of beauty. It will never be true to say : This object owes its beauty solely to the presence of this characteristic ; nor yet that : Wherever this characteristic is present, the object must be beautiful. All that can be true is that certain objects are beautiful, because they have certain characteristics, in the sense that they would not be beautiful unless they had them. And it may be possible to find that certain characteristics are more or less universally present in all beautiful objects, and are, in this sense, more or less important conditions of beauty. But it is important to observe that the very qualities, which differentiate one beautiful object from all others, are, if the object be truly beautiful, as essential to its beauty, as those which it has in common with ever so many others. The object would no more have the beauty it has, without its specific qualities, than without those that are generic ; and the generic qualities, by themselves, would fail, as completely, to give beauty, as those which are specific. VI] THE IDEAL 203 122. II. It will be remembered that I began this survey of great unmixed goods, by dividing all the greatest goods we know into the two classes of aesthetic enjoyments, on the one hand, and the pleasures of human intercourse or of personal affection, on the other. I postponed the consideration of the latter on the ground that they presented additional complications In what this additional complication consists, will now be evident ; and I have already been obliged to take account of it, in discussing the contribution to value made by true belief. It consists in the fact that in the case of personal affection, the object itself is not merely beautiful, while possessed of little or no intrinsic value, but is itself, in part at least, of great intrinsic value. All the constituents which we have found to be necessary to the most valuable aesthetic enjoyments, namely, appropriate emotion, cognition of truly beautiful qualities, and true belief, are equally necessary here ; but here we have the additional fact that the object must be not only truly beautiful, but also truly good in a high degree. It is evident that this additional complication only occurs in so far as there is included in the object of personal affection some of the mental qualities of the person towards whom the affection is felt. And I think it may be admitted that, wherever the affection is most valuable, the appreciation of mental qualities must form a large part of it, and that the presence of this part makes the whole far more valuable than it could have been without it. But it seems very doubtful whether this appreciation, by itself, can possess as much value as the whole in which it is combined with an appreciation of the appropriate corporeal expression of the mental qualities in question. It is certain that in all actual cases of valuable affection, the bodily expressions of character, whether by looks, by words, or by actions, do form a part of the object towards which the affection is felt, and that the fact of their inclusion appears to heighten the value of the whole state. It is, indeed, very difScult to imagine what the cognition of mental qualities alone, unaccompanied by any corporeal expression, would be like ; and, in so far as we succeed in making this abstraction, the whole considered certainly appears to have less valua I 8-a 204 THE IDEAL [chap. therefore conclude that the importance of an admiration of admirable mental qualities lies chiefly in the immense superiority of a whole, in which it forms a part, to one in which it is absent, and not in any high degree of intrinsic value which it possesses by itself. It even appears to be doubtful, whether, in itself, it possesses so much value as the appreciation of mere corporeal beauty undoubtedly does possess ; that is to say, whether the appreciation of what has great intrinsic value is so valuable as the appreciation of what is merely beautiful. But further if we consider the nature of admirable mental qualities, by themselves, it appears that a proper appreciation of them involves a reference to purely material beauty in yet another way. Admirable mental qualities do, if our previous conclusions are correct, consist very largely in an emotional contemplation of beautiful objects ; and hence the appreciation of them will consist essentially in the contemplation of such contemplation. It is true that the most valuable appreciation of persons appears to be that which consists in the appreciation of their appreciation of other persons : but even here a reference to material beauty appears to be involved, both in respect of the fact that what is appreciated in the last instance may be the contemplation of what is merely beautiful, and in respect of the fact that the most valuable appreciation of a person appears to include an appreciation of his corporeal expression. Though, therefore, we may admit that the appreciation of a person’s attitude towards other persons, or, to take one instance, the love of love, is far the most valuable good we know, and far more valuable than the mere love of beauty, yet we can only admit this if the first be understood to include the latter, in various degrees of directness. With regard to the question what are the mental qualities of which the cognition is essential to the value of human inter- course, it is plain that they include, in the first place, all those varieties of aesthetic appreciation, which formed our first class of goods. They include, therefore, a great variety of different emotions, each of which is appropriate to some different kind of beauty. But we must now add to these the whole range of emotions, which are appropriate to persons, and which are THE IDEAL 205 VI] different from those which are appropriate to mere corporeal beauty. It must also be remembered that just as these emotions have little value in themselves, and as the state of mind in which they exist may have its value greatly heightened, or may entirely lose it and become positively evil in a great degree, according as the cognitions accompanying the emotions are appropriate or inappropriate ; so too the appreciation of these emotions, though it may have some value in itself, may yet form part of a whole which has far greater value or no value at all, according as it is or is not accompanied by a perception of the appropriateness of the emotions to their objects. It is obvious, therefore, that the study of what is valuable in human inter- course is a study of immense complexity ; and that there may be much human intercourse which has little or no value, or is positively bad. Yet here too, as with the question what is beautiful, there seems no reason to doubt that a reflective judgment will in the main decide correctly both as to what are positive goods and even as to any great differences in value between these goods. In particular, it may be remarked that the emotions, of which the contemplation is essential to the greatest values, and which are also themselves appropriately excited by such contemplation, appear to be those which are commonly most highly prized under the name of affection. 123. I have now completed my examination into the nature of those great positive goods, which do not appear to include among their constituents anything positively evil or ugly, though they include much which is in itself indifferent. And I wish to point out certain conclusions which appear to follow, with regard to the nature of the Summum Bonum, or that state of things which would be the most perfect we can conceive. Those idealistic philosophers, whose views agree most closely with those here advocated, in that they deny pleasure to be the sole good and regard what is completely good as having some complexity, have usually represented a purely spiritual state of existence as the Ideal. Regarding matter as essentially imperfect, if not positively evil, they have concluded that the total absence of all material properties is necessary to a state of perfection. Now, according to what has been said, this view 206 THE IDEAL [chap. would be correct so far as it asserts that any great good must be mental, and so far as it asserts that a purely material existence, hy itself, can have little or no value. The superiority of the spiritual over the material has, in a sense, been amply vindicated. But it does not follow, from this superiority, that a perfect state of things must be one, from which all material properties are rigidly excluded: on the contrary, if our conclusions are correct, it would seem to be the case that a state of things, in which they are included, must be vastly better than any conceivable state in which they were absent. In order to see that this is so, the chief thing necessary to be considered is exactly what it is which we declare to be good when we declare that the appreciation of beauty in Art and Nature is so. That this appreciation is good, the philosophers in question do not for the most part deny. But, if we admit it, then we should remember Butler’s maxim that : Everything is what it is, and not another thing. I have tried to shew, and I think it is too evident to be disputed, that such appreciation is an organic unity, a complex whole ; and that, in its most undoubted instances, part of what is included in this whole is a cognition of material qualities, and particularly of a vast variety of what are called secondary qualities. If, then, it is this whole, which we know to be good, and not another thing, then we know that material qualities, even though they be perfectly worthless in themselves, are yet essential constituents of what is far from worthless. What we know to be valuable is the apprehension of just these qualities, and not of any others ; and, if we propose to subtract them from it, then what we have left is not that which we know to have value, but something else. And it must be noticed that this conclusion holds, even if my contention, that a true belief in the existence of these qualities adds to the value of the whole in which it is included, be disputed. We should then, indeed, be entitled to assert that the existence of a material world was wholly immaterial to perfection ; but the fact that what we knew to be good was a cognition of material qualities (though purely imaginary), would still remain. It must, then, be admitted on pain of self-contradiction — on pain of holding that things are not what they are, but something else VIJ THE IDEAL 207 — that a world, from which material qualities were wholly banished, would be a world which lacked many, if not all, of those things, which we know most certainly to be great goods. That it might nevertheless be a far better world than one which retained these goods, I have already admitted (§111 (1)). But in order to shew that any such world would be thus better, it would be necessary to shew that the retention of these things, though good in themselves, impaired, in a more than equal degree, the value of some whole, to which they might belong ; and the task of shewing this has certainly never been attempted. Until it be performed, we are entitled to assert that material qualities are a necessary constituent of the Ideal ; that, though something utterly unknown might be better than any world containing either them or any other good we know, yet we have no reason to suppose that anything whatever would be better than a state of things in which they were included. To deny and exclude matter, is to deny and exclude the best we know. That a thing may retain its value, while losing some of its qualities, is utterly untrue. All that is true is that the changed thing may have more value than, or as much value as, that of which the qualities have been lost. What I contend is that nothing, which we know to be good and which contains no material qualities, has such great value that we can declare it, hy itself, to be superior to the whole which would be formed by the addition to it of an appreciation of material qualities. That a purely spiritual good may be the best of single things, I am not much concerned to dispute, although, in what has been said with regard to the nature of personal affection, I have given reasons for doubting it. But that by adding to it some appreciation of material qualities, which, though perhaps inferior by itself, is certainly a great positive good, we should obtain a greater sum of value, which no cori'esponding decrease in the value of the whole, as a whole, could counterbalance — this, I maintain, we have certainly no reason to doubt. 124. In order to complete this discussion of the main principles involved in the determination of intrinsic values, the chief remaining topics, necessary to be treated, appear to be two. The first of these is the nature of great intrinsic evils, 208 THE IDEAL [chap. including what I may call mixed evils; that is to say, those evil wholes, which nevertheless contain, as essential elements, some- thing positively good or beautiful. And the second is the nature of what I may similarly call mixed goods ; that is to say, those wholes, which, though intrinsically good as wholes, nevertheless contain, as essential elements, something positively evil or ugly. It will greatly facilitate this discussion, if I may be understood throughout to use the terms ‘beautiful’ and ‘ ugly,’ not necessarily with reference to things of the kind which most naturally occur to us as instances of what is beautiful and ugly, but in accordance with my own proposed definition of beauty. Thus I shall use the word ‘ beautiful ’ to denote that of which the admiring contemplation is good in itself ; and ‘ ugly ’ to denote that of which the admiring contemplation is evil in itself. I. With regard, then, to great positive evils, I think it is evident that, if we take all due precautions to discover precisely what those things are, of which, if they existed absolutely by themselves, we should judge the existence to be a great evil, we shall find most of them to be organic unities of exactly the same nature as those which are the greatest positive goods. That is to say, they are cognitions of some object, accompanied by some emotion. Just as neither a cognition nor an emotion, by itself, appeared capable of being greatly good, so (with one exception), neither a cognition nor an emotion, by itself, appears capable of being greatly evil. And just as a whole formed of both, even without the addition of any other element, appeared undoubtedly capable of being a great good, so such a whole, by itself, appears capable of being a great evil. With regard to the third element, which was discussed as capable of adding greatly to the value of a good, namely, true belief, it will appear that it has different relations towards different kinds of evils. In some cases the addition of true belief to a positive evil seems to constitute a far worse evil; but in other cases it is not apparent that it makes any difference. The greatest positive evils may be divided into the following three classes. 125. (1) The first class consists of those evils, which seem always to include an enjoyment or admiring contemplation of VI] THE IDEAL 209 things which are themselves either evil or ugly. That is to say these evils are characterised by the fact that they include precisely the same emotion, which is also essential to the greatest unmixed goods, from which they are differentiated by the fact that this emotion is directed towards an inappropriate object. In so far as this emotion is either a slight good in itself or a slightly beautiful object, these evils would therefore be cases of what I have called ‘mixed’ evils; but, as I have already said, it seems very doubtful whether an emotion, completely isolated from its object, has either value or beauty : it certainly has not much of either. It is, however, important to observe that the very same emotions, which are often loosely talked of as the greatest or the only goods, may be essential constituents of the very worst wholes: that, according to the nature of the cognition which accompanies them, they may be conditions either of the greatest good, or of the greatest evil. In order to illustrate the nature of evils of this class, I may take two instances — cruelty and lasciviousness. That these are great intrinsic evils, we may, I think, easily assure ourselves, by imagining the state of a man, whose mind is solely occupied by either of these passions, in their worst form. If we then consider what judgment we should pass upon a universe which consisted solely of minds thus occupied, without the smallest hope that there would ever exist in it the smallest consciousness of any object other than those proper to these passions, or any feeling directed to any such object, I think we cannot avoid the conclusion that the existence of such a universe would be a far worse evil than the existence of none at all. But, if this be so, it follows that these two vicious states are not only, as is commonly admitted, bad as means, but also bad in themselves. — And that they involve in their nature that complication of elements, which I have called a love of what is evil or ugly, is, I think, no less plain. With regard to the pleasures of lust, the nature of the cognition, by the presence of which they are to be defined, is somewhat difficult to analyse. But it appears to include both cognitions of organic sensations and perceptions of states of the body, of which the enjoyment is certainly an evil in itself. So far as these are concerned, lasciviousness would, 210 THE IDEAL [chap. then, include in its essence an admiring contemplation of what is ugly. But certainly one of its commonest ingredients, in its worst forms, is an enjoyment of the same state of mind in other people: and in this case it would therefore also include a love of what is evil. With regard to cruelty, it is easy to see that an enjoyment of pain in other people is essential to it; and, as we shall see, when we come to consider pain, this is certainly a love of evil : while, in so far as it also includes a delight in the bodily signs of agony, it would also comprehend a love of what is ugly. In both cases, it should be observed, the evil of the state is heightened not only by an increase in the evil or ugliness of the object, but also by an increase in the enjoyment. It might be objected, in the case of cruelty, that our dis- approval of it, even in the isolated case supposed, where no considerations of its badness as a means could influence us, may yet be really directed to the pain of the persons, which it takes delight in contemplating. This objection may be met, in the first place, by the remark that it entirely fails to explain the judgment, which yet, I think, no one, on reflection, will be able to avoid making, that even though the amount of pain con- templated be the same, yet the greater the delight in its contemplation, the worse the state of things. But it may also, I think, be met by notice of a fact, which we were unable to urge in considering the similar possibility with regard to goods — namely the possibility that the reason why we attribute greater value to a worthy affection for a real person, is that we take into account the additional good consisting in the existence of that person. We may I think urge, in the case of cruelty, that its intrinsic odiousness is equally great, whether the pain contemplated really exists or is purely imaginary. I, at least, am unable to distinguish that, in this case, the presence of true belief makes any difference to the intrinsic value of the whole considered, although it undoubtedly may make a great differ- ence to its value as a means. And so also with regard to other evils of this class : I am unable to see that a true belief in the existence of their objects makes any difference in the degree of their positive demerits. On the other hand, the presence of another class of beliefs seems to make a considerable difference. VI] THE IDEAL 211 When we enjoy what is evil or ugly, in spite of our knowledge that it is so, the state of things seems considerably worse than if we made no judgment at all as to the object’s value. And the same seems also, strangely enough, to be the case when we make a false judgment of value. When we admire what is ugly or evil, believing that it is beautiful and good, this belief seems also to enhance the intrinsic vileness of our condition. It must, of course, be understood that, in both these cases, the judgment in question is merely what I have called a judgment of taste; that is to say, it is concerned with the worth of the qualities actually cognised and not with the worth of the object, to which those qualities may be rightly or wrongly attributed. Finally it should be mentioned that evils of this class, beside that emotional element (namely enjoyment and admiration) which they share with great unmixed goods, appear always also to include some specific emotion, which does not enter in the same way into the constitution of any good. The presence of this specific emotion seems certainly to enhance the badness of the whole, though it is not plain that, by itself, it would be either evil or ugly. 126. (2) The second class of great evils are undoubtedly mixed evils; but I treat them next, because, in a certain respect, they appear to be the converse of the class last considered. Just as it is essential to this last class that they should include an emotion, appropriate to the cognition of what is good or beautiful, but directed to an inappropriate object; so to this second class it is essential that they should include a cognition of what is good or beautiful, but accompanied by an inappro- priate emotion. In short, just as the last class may be described as cases of the love of what is evil or ugly, so this class may be described as cases of the hatred of what is good or beautiful. With regard to these evils it should be remarked: First, that the vices of hatred, envy and contempt, where these vices are evil in themselves, appear to be instances of them; and that they are frequently accompanied by evils of the first class, for example, where a delight is felt in the pain of a good person. 212 THE IDEAL [CHAP. Where they are thus accompanied, the whole thus formed is undoubtedly worse than if either existed singly. And secondly: That in their case a true belief in the exist- ence of the good or beautiful object, which is hated, does appear to enhance the badness of the whole, in which it is present. Undoubtedly also, as in our first class, the presence of a true belief as to the value of the objects contemplated, increases the evil. But, contrary to what was the case in our first class, a false judgment of value appears to lessen it. 127. (3) The third class of great positive evils appears to be the class oi pains. With regard to these it should first be remarked that, as in the case of pleasure, it is not pain itself, but only the conscious- ness of pain, towards which our judgments of value are directed. Just as in Chap. III., it was said that pleasure, however intense, which no one felt, would be no good at all; so it appears that pain, however intense, of which there was no consciousness, would be no evil at all. It is, therefore, only the consciousness of intense pain, which can be maintained to be a great evil. But that this, by itself, may be a great evil, I cannot avoid thinking. The case of pain thus seems to differ from that of pleasure: for the mere con- sciousness of pleasure, however intense, does not, by itself, appear to be a great good, even if it has some slight intrinsic value. In short, pain (if we understand by this expression, the con- sciousness of pain) appears to be a far worse evil than pleasure is a good. But, if this be so, then pain must be admitted to be an exception from the rule which seems to hold both of all other great evils and of all great goods: namely that they are all organic unities to which both a cognition of an object and an emotion directed towards that object are essential. In the case of pain and of pain alone, it seems to be true that a mere cognition, by itself, may be a great evil. It is, indeed, an organic unity, since it involves both the cognition and the object, neither of which, by themselves, has either merit or demerit. But it is a less complex organic unity than any other great evil and than any great good, both in respect of the fact that it does not involve, beside the cognition, an emotion directed THE IDEAL 213 VI] towards its object, and also in respect of the fact that the object may here be absolutely simple, whereas in most, if not all, other cases, the object itself is highly complex. This want of analogy between the relation of pain to intrinsic evil and of pleasure to intrinsic good, seems also to be exhibited in a second respect. Not only is it the case that consciousness of intense pain is, by itself, a great evil, whereas consciousness of intense pleasure is, by itself, no great good; but also the converse difference appears to hold of the contribution which they make to the value of the whole, when they are combined respectively with another great evil or with a great good. That is to say, the presence of pleasure (though not in proportion to its intensity) does appear to enhance the value of a whole, in which it is combined with any of the great unmixed goods which we have considered : it might even be maintained that it is only wholes, in which some pleasure is included, that possess any great value : it is certain, at all events, that the presence of pleasure makes a contribution to the value of good wholes greatly in excess of its own intrinsic value. On the contrary, if a feeling of pain be combined with any of the evil states of mind which we have been considering, the difference which its presence makes to the value of the whole, as a whole, seems to be rather for the better than the worse : in any case, the only additional evil which it introduces, is that which it, by itself, intrinsically constitutes. Thus, whereas pain is in itself a great evil, but makes no addition to the badness of a whole, in which it is combined with some other bad thing, except that which consists in its own intrinsic badness; pleasure, conversely, is not in itself a great good, but does make a great addition to the goodness of a whole in which it is combined with a good thing, quite apart from its own intrinsic value. 128. But finally, it must be insisted that pleasure and pain are completely analogous in this : that we cannot assume either that the presence of pleasure always makes a state of things better on the whole, or that the presence of pain always makes it worse. This is the truth which is most liable to be overlooked with regard to them ; and it is because this is true, that the common theory, that pleasure is the only good and pain the 214 THE IDEAL [chap, only evil, has its grossest consequences in misj udgments of value. Not only is the pleasantness of a state not in proportion to its intrinsic worth ; it may even add positively to its vileness. We do not think the successful hatred of a villian the less vile and odious, because he takes the keenest delight in it ; nor is there the least need, in logic, why we should think so, apart from an unintelligent prejudice in favour of pleasure. In fact it seems to be the case that wherever pleasure is added to an evil state of either of our first two classes, the whole thus formed is always worse than if no pleasure had been there. And simi- larly with regard to pain. If pain be added to an evil state of either of our first two classes, the whole thus formed is alwa.ys better, as a whole, than if no pain had been there ; though here, if the pain be too intense, since that is a great evil, the state may not be better on the whole. It is in this way that the theory of vindictive punishment may be vindicated. The infliction of pain on a person whose state of mind is bad may, if the pain be not too intense, create a state of things that is better on the whole than if the evil state of mind had existed unpunished. Whether such a state of things can ever constitute a positive good, is another question. 129. II. The consideration of this other question belongs properly to the second topic, which was reserved above for dis- cussion — namely the topic of ‘ mixed ’ goods. ‘ Mixed ’ goods were defined above as things, which, though positively good as wholes, nevertheless contain, as essential elements, something intrinsically evil or ugly. And there certainly seem to be such goods. But for the proper consideration of them, it is necessary to take into account a new distinction — the distinction just expressed as being between the value which a thing possesses ‘ as a whole,’ and that which it possesses ‘ on the whole.’ When ‘ mixed ’ goods were defined as things positively good as wholes, the expression was ambiguous. It was meant that they were positively good on the whole', but it must now be observed that the value which a thing possesses on the whole may be said to be equivalent to the sum of the value which it possesses as a whole, together with the intrinsic values which may belong to any of its parts. In iact, by the ‘ value which VI] THE IDEAL 215 a thing possesses as a whole,’ there may be meant two quite distinct things. There may be meant either (1) That value which arises solely from the combination of two or more things ; or else (2) The total value formed by the addition to (1) of any intrinsic values which may belong to the things combined. The meaning of the distinction may perhaps be most easily seen by considering the supposed case of vindictive punishment. If it is true that the combined existence of two evils may yet constitute a less evil than would be constituted by the existence of either singly, it is plain that this can only be because there arises from the combination a positive good which is greater than the difference between the sum of the two evils and the demerit of either singly : this positive good would then be the value of the whole, as a whole, in sense (1). Yet if this value be not so great a good as the sum of the two evils is an evil, it is plain that the value of the whole state of things will be a positive evil ; and this value is the value of the whole, as a whole, in sense (2). Whatever view may he taken with regard to the particular case of vindictive punishment, it is plain that we have here two distinct things, with regard to either of which a separate question may be asked in the case of every organic unity. The first of these two things may be expressed as the difference between the value of the whole thing and the sum of the value of its parts. And it is plain that where the parts have little or no intrinsic value (as in our first class of goods, §§ 114, 115), this difference will be nearly or absolutely identical with the value of the whole thing. The distinction, therefore, only becomes important in the case of wholes, of which one or more parts have a great intrinsic value, positive or negative. The first of these cases, that of a whole, in which one part has a great positive value, is exemplified in our 2nd and 3rd classes of great unmixed goods (§§ 120, 122); and similarly the Summum Bonum is a whole of which many parts have a great positive value. Such cases, it may be ob- served, are also very frequent and very important objects of Aesthetic judgment ; since the essential distinction between the ‘ classical ’ and the ‘ romantic ’ styles consists in the fact that the former aims at obtaining the greatest possible value 216 THE IDEAL [chap. for the whole, as a luhole, in sense (1), whereas the latter sacri- fices this in order to obtain the greatest possible value for some part, which is itself an organic unity. It follows that we cannot declare either style to be necessarily superior, since an equally good result on the whole, or ‘as a whole’ in sense (2), may be obtained by either method ; but the distinctively aesthetic temperament seems to be characterised by a tendency to prefer a good result obtained by the classical, to an equally good result obtained by the romantic method. 130. But what we have now to consider are cases of wholes, in which one or more parts have a great negative value — are great positive evils. And first of all, we may take the strongest cases, like that of retributive punishment, in which we have a whole, exclusively composed of two great positive evils — wickedness and pain. Can such a whole ever be positively good on the whole ? (1) I can see no reason to think that such wholes ever are positively good on the whole. But from the fact that they may, nevertheless, be less evils, than either of their parts taken singly, it follows that they have a characteristic which is most important for the correct decision of practical questions. It follows that, quite apart from consequences or any value which an evil may have as a mere means, it may, supposing one evil already exists, be worth while to create another, since, by the mere creation of this second, there may be constituted a whole less bad than if the original evil had been left to exist by itself. And similarly, with regard to all the wholes which I am about to consider, it must be remembered, that, even if they are not goods on the whole, yet, where an evil already exists, as in this world evils do exist, the existence of the other part of these wholes will constitute a thing desirable for its own sake — that is to say, not merely a means to future goods, but one of the ends which must be taken into account in estimating what that best possible state of things is, to which every right action must be a means. 131. (2) But, as a matter of fact, I cannot avoid thinking that there are wholes, containing something positively evil and ugly, which are, nevertheless, great positive goods on the whole. VI] THE IDEAL 217 Indeed, it appears to be to this class that those instances of virtue, which contain anything intrinsically good, chiefly be- long. It need not, of course, be denied that there is sometimes included in a virtuous disposition more or less of those un- mixed goods which were first discussed — that is to say, a real love of what is good or beautiful. But the typical and charac- teristic virtuous dispositions, so far as they are not mere means, seem rather to be examples of mixed goods. We may take as instances (a) Courage and Compassion, which seem to belong to the second of the three classes of virtues distinguished in our last chapter (§ 107); and (b) the specifically ‘moral’ sentiment, by reference to which the third of those three classes was defined (§ 108). Courage and compassion, in so far as they contain an in- trinsically desirable state of mind, seem to involve essentially a cognition of something evil or ugly. In the case of courage the object of the cognition may be an evil of any of our three classes; in the case of compassion, the proper object is pain. Both these virtues, accordingly, must contain precisely the same cognitive element, which is also essential to evils of class (1); and they are differentiated from these by the fact that the emotion directed to these objects is, in their case, an emotion of the same kind which was essential to evils of class (2). In short, just as evils of class (2) seemed to consist in a hatred of what was good or beautiful, and evils of class (1) in a love of what was evil or ugly; so these virtues involve a hatred of w'hat is evil or ugly. Both these virtues do, no doubt, also con- tain other elements, and, among these, each contains its specific emotion; but that their value does not depend solely upon these other elements, we may easily assure ourselves, by considering what we should think of an attitude of endurance or of defiant contempt toward an object intrinsically good or beautiful, or of the state of a man whose mind was filled with pity for the happiness of a worthy admiration. Yet pity for the undeserved sufferings of others, endurance of pain to ourselves, and a defiant hatred of evil dispositions in ourselves or in others, seem to be un- doubtedly admirable in themselves; and if so, there are admirable things, which must be lost, if there were no cognition of evil. 218 THE IDEAL [chap. Similarly the specifically ‘moral’ sentiment, in all cases where it has any considerable intrinsic value, appears to include a hatred of evils of the first and second classes. It is true that the emotion is here excited by the idea that an action is right or wrong ; and hence the object of the idea which excites it is generally not an intrinsic evil. But, as far as I can discover, the emotion with which a conscientious man views a real or imaginary right action, contains, as an essential element, the same emotion with which he views a wrong one: it seems, indeed, that this element is necessary to make his emotion specifically moral. And the specifically moral emotion excited by the idea of a wrong action, seems to me to contain essentially a more or less vague cognition of the kind of intrinsic evils, which are usually caused by wrong actions, whether they would or would not be caused by the particular action in question. I am, in fact, unable to distinguish, in its main features, the moral sentiment excited by the idea of rightness and wrongness, wherever it is intense, from the total state constituted by a cognition of something intrinsically evil together with the emotion of hatred directed towards it. Nor need we be sur- prised that this mental state should be the one chiefly associated with the idea of rightness, if we reflect on the nature of those actions which are most commonly recognised as duties. For by far the greater part of the actions, of which we commonly think as duties, are negative: what we feel to be our duty is to abstain from some action to which a strong natural impulse tempts us. And these wrong actions, in the avoidance of which duty consists, are usually such as produce, very immediately, some bad consequence in pain to others; while, in many promi- nent instances, the inclination, which prompts us to them, is itself an intrinsic evil, containing, as where the impulse is lust or cruelty, an anticipatory enjoyment of something evil or ugly. That right action does thus so frequently entail the suppression of some evil impulse, is necessary to explain the plausibility of the view that virtue consists in the control of passion by reason. Accordingly, the truth seems to be that, whenever a strong moral emotion is excited by the idea of rightness, this emotion is accompanied by a vague cognition of the kind of VI] THE IDEAL 219 evils usually suppressed or avoided by the actions which most frequently occur to us as instances of duty; and that the emotion is directed towards this evil quality. We may, then, conclude that the specific moral emotion owes almost all its intrinsic value to the fact that it includes a cognition of evils accompanied by a hatred of them : mere rightness, whether truly or untruly attributed to an action, seems incapable of forming the object of an emotional contemplation, which shall be any great good. 132. If this be so, then we have, in many prominent instances of virtue, cases of a whole, greatly good in itself, which yet contains the cognition of something, whereof the existence would be a great evil: a great good is absolutely dependent for its value, upon its inclusion of something evil or ugly, although it does not owe its value solely to this element in it. And, in the case of virtues, this evil object does, in general, actually exist. But there seems no reason to think that, when it does exist, the whole state of things thus constituted is therefore the better on the whole. What seems indubitable, is only that the feeling contemplation of an object, whose existence would be a great evil, or which is ugly, may be essential to a valuable whole. We have another undoubted instance of this in the appreciation of tragedy. But, in tragedy, the sufferings of Lear, and the vice of lago may be purely imaginary. And it seems certain that, if they really existed, the evil thus existing, while it must detract from the good consisting in a proper feeling towards them, will add no positive value to that good great enough to counterbalance such a loss. It does, indeed, seem that the existence of a true belief in the object of these mixed goods does add some value to the whole in which it is combined with them : a conscious compassion for real suffering seems to be better, as a whole, than a compassion for sufferings merely imaginary; and this may well be the case, even though the evil involved in the actual suffering makes the total state of things bad on the whole. And it certainly seems to be true that a false belief in the actual existence of its object makes a worse mixed good than if our state of mind were that with which we normally regard pure fiction. Accordingly we may 220 THE IDEAL [chap. conclude that the only mixed goods, which are positively good on the whole, are those in which the object is something which would be a great evil, if it existed, or which is ugly. 133. With regard, then, to those mixed goods, which consist in an appropriate attitude of the mind towards things evil or ugly, and which include among their number the greater part of such virtues as have any intrinsic value whatever, the following three conclusions seem to be those chiefly requiring to be emphasized: — (1) There seems no reason to think that where the object is a thing evil in itself, which actually exists, the total state of things is ever positively good on the whole. The appropriate mental attitude towards a really existing evil contains, of course, an element which is absolutely identical with the same attitude towards the same evil, where it is purely imaginary. And this element, which is common to the two cases, may be a great positive good, on the whole. But there seems no reason to doubt that, where the evil is 7'eal, the amount of this real evil is always sufficient to reduce the total sum of value to a negative quantity. Accordingly we have no reason to maintain the paradox that an ideal world would be one in which vice and suffering must exist in order that it may contain the goods consisting in the appropriate emotion towards them. It is not a positive good that suffering should exist, in order that we may compassionate it ; or wickedness, that we may hate it. There is no reason to think that any actual evil whatsoever would be contained in the Ideal. It follows that we cannot admit the actual validity of any of the arguments commonly used in Theodicies; no such argument succeeds in justifying the fact that there does exist even the smallest of the many evils which this world contains. The most that can be said for such arguments is that, when they make appeal to the principle of organic unity, their appeal is valid in principle. It might be the case that the existence of evil was necessary, not merely as a means, but analytically, to the existence of the greatest good. But we have no reason to think that this is the case in any instance whatsoever. But (2) there is reason to think that the cognition of things VI] THE IDEAL 221 evil or ugly, which are purely imaginary, is essential to the Ideal. In this case the burden of proof lies the other way. It cannot be doubted that the appreciation of tragedy is a great positive good; and it seems almost equally certain that the virtues of compassion, courage, and self-control contain such goods. And to all these the cognition of things which would be evil, if they existed, is analytically necessary. Here then we have things of which the existence must add value to any whole in which they are contained ; nor is it possible to assure our- selves that any whole, from which they were omitted, would thereby gain more in its value as a whole, than it would lose by their omission. We have no reason to think that any whole, which did not contain them, would be so good on the whole as some whole in which they were obtained. The case for their inclusion in the Ideal is as strong as that for the inclusion of material qualities (§ 123, above). Against the inclusion of these goods nothing can be urged except a bare possibility. Finally (3) it is important to insist that, as was said above, these mixed virtues have a great practical value, in addition to that which they possess either in themselves or as mere means. Where evils do exist, as in this world they do, the fact that they are known and properly appreciated, constitutes a state of things having greater value as a whole even than the same appreciation of purely imaginary evils. This state of things, it has been said, is never positively good on the whole ; but where the evil, which reduces its total value to a negative quantity, already unavoidably exists, to obtain the intrinsic value which belongs to it as a whole will obviously produce a better state of things than if the evil had existed by itself, quite apart from the good element in it which is identical with the appreciation of imaginary evils, and from any ulterior consequences which its existence may bring about. The case is here the same as with retributive punishment. Where an evil already exists, it is well that it should be pitied or hated or endured, according to its nature; just as it may be well that some evils should be punished. Of course, as in all practical cases, it often happens that the attainment of this good is incompatible with the attainment of another and a greater one. But it is important 222 THE IDEAL [chap. to insist that we have here a real intrinsic value, which must be taken into account in calculating that greatest possible balance of intrinsic value, which it is always our duty to produce, 134. I have now completed such remarks as seemed most necessary to be made concerning intrinsic values. It is obvious that for the proper answering of this, the fundamental question of Ethics, there remains a field of investigation as wide and as difficult, as was assigned to Practical Ethics in my last chapter. There is as much to be said concerning what results are intrinsically good, and in what degrees, as concerning what results it is possible for us to bring about : both questions demand, and wiU repay, an equally patient enquiry. Many of the judgments, which I have made in this chapter, will, no doubt, seem unduly arbitrary : it must be confessed that some of the attributions of intrinsic value, which have seemed to me to be true, do not display that symmetry and system which is wont to be required of philosophers. But if this be urged as an objection, I may respectfully point out that it is none. We have no title whatever to assume that the truth on any subject- matter will display such symmetry as we desire to see — or (to use the common vague phrase) that it will possess any par- ticular form of ‘unity.’ To search for ‘unity’ and ‘system,’ at the expense of truth, is not, I take it, the proper business of philosophy, however universally it may have been the practice of philosophers. And that all truths about the Universe possess to one another all the various relations, which may be meant by ‘unity,’ can only be legitimately asserted, when we have carefully distinguished those various relations and dis- covered what those truths are. In particular, we can have no title to assert that ethical truths are ‘unified’ in any particular manner, except in virtue of an enquiry conducted by the method which I have endeavoured to follow and to illustrate. The study of Ethics would, no doubt, be far more simple, and its results far more ‘systematic,’ if, for instance, pain were an evil of exactly the same magnitude as pleasure is a good ; but we have no reason whatever to assume that the Universe is such that ethical truths must display this kind of symmetry: no argument VIJ THE IDEAL 223 against my conclusion, that pleasure and pain do not thus correspond, can have any weight whatever, failing a careful examination of the instances which have led me to form it. Nevertheless I am content that the results of this chapter should be taken rather as illustrating the method which must be pursued in answering the fundamental question of Ethics, and the principles which must be observed, than as giving the correct answer to that question. That things intrinsically good or bad are many and various ; that most of them are ‘ organic unities,’ in the peculiar and definite sense to which I have confined the term; and that our only means of deciding upon their intrinsic value and its degree, is by carefully distinguishing exactly what the thing is, about which we ask the question, and then looking to see whether it has or has not the unique predicate ‘good’ in any of its various degrees: these are the conclusions, upon the truth of which I desire to insist. Similarly, in my last chapter, with regard to the question What ought we to do?’ I have endeavoured rather to shew exactly what is the meaning of the question, and what difficulties must consequently be faced in answering it, than to prove that any particular answers are true. And that these two questions, having precisely the nature which I have assigned to them, are the questions which it is the object of Ethics to answer, may be regarded as the main result of the preceding chapters. These are the questions which ethical philosophers have always been mainly concerned to answer, although they have not recognised what their question was — what predicate they were asserting to attach to things. The practice of asking what things are virtues or duties, without distinguishing what these terms mean ; the practice of asking what ought to be here and now, without distinguishing whether as means or end — for its own sake or for that of its results ; the search for one single criterion of right or wrong, without the recognition that in order to discover a criterion we must first know what things are right or wrong; and the neglect of the principle of ‘organic unities’ — these sources of error have hitherto been almost universally prevalent in Ethics. The conscious endeavour to avoid them all, and to apply to all the ordinary objects of ethical 224 THE IDEAL [chap. j udgment these two questions and these only : Has it intrinsic value? and Is it a means to the best possible? — this attempt, so far as I know, is entirely new; and its results, when compared with those habitual to moral philosophers, are certainly suf- ficiently surprising: that to Common Sense they will not appear so strange, I venture to hope and believe. It is, I think, much to be desired that the labour commonly devoted to answering such questions as whether certain ‘ends’ are more or less ‘com- prehensive’ or more or less ‘consistent’ with one another — questions, which, even if a precise meaning were given to them, are wholly irrelevant to the proof of any ethical conclusion — should be diverted to the separate investigation of these two clear problems. 135. The main object of this chapter has been to define roughly the class of things, among which we may expect to find either great intrinsic goods or great intrinsic evils ; and parti- cularly to point out that there is a vast variety of such things, and that the simplest of them are, with one exception, highly complex wholes, composed of parts which have little or no value in themselves. All of them involve consciousness of an object, which is itself usually highly complex, and almost all involve also an emotional attitude towards this object; but, though they thus have certain characteristics in common, the vast variety of qualities in respect of which they differ from one another are equally essential to their value: neither the generic character of all, nor the specific character of each, is either greatly good or greatly evil by itself; they owe their value or demerit, in each case, to the presence of both. My discussion falls into three main divisions, dealing respectively (1) with unmixed goods, (2) with evils, and (3) with mixed goods. (1) Unmixed goods may all be said to consist in the love of beautiful things or of good persons: but the number of different goods of this kind is as great as that of beautiful objects, and they are also differentiated from one another by the different emotions appropriate to different objects. These goods are undoubtedly good, even where the things or persons loved are imaginary; but it was urged that, where the thing or person is real and is believed to be so, these two facts together, when combined with the mere VI] THE IDEAL 225 love of the qualities in question, constitute a whole which is greatly better than that mere love, having an additional value quite distinct from that which belongs to the existence of the object, where that object is a good person. Finally it was pointed out that the love of mental qualities, by themselves, does not seem to be so great a good as that of mental and material qualities together; and that, in any case, an immense number of the best things are, or include, a love of material qualities (113 — 123). (2) Great evils may be said to consist either (a) in the love of what is evil or ugly, or (b) in the hatred of what is good or beautiful, or (c) in the consciousness of pain. Thus the consciousness of pain, if it be a great evil, is the only exception to the rule that all great goods and great evils involve both a cognition and an emotion directed towards its object (124 — 128). (3) Mixed goods are those which include some element which is evil or ugly. They may be said to consist either in hatred of what is ugly or of evils of classes (a) and (b), or in compassion for pain. But where they include an evil, which actually exists, its demerit seems to be always great enough to outweigh the positive value which they possess (129—133). INDEX, Aesthetio enjoyments 189-202, 203 judgment 215 temperament 216 Aesthetics 200 ASection beauty of 204-5 misdirected 195, 198 reciprocal 198 value of 188-9, 203-5 Altruism 96-7, 167 Analytic judgments 7, 29, 33-4, 35, 220-1 Appreciation 189-90, 200, 204-5, 221 Approval 131 Approve 60 Approbation 171 Appropriate, inappropriate 192, 199, 204-5, 209, 211, 220 defined 190 Aristotle 4 definition of virtue 171 valuation of virtues 176-7 valuation of knowledge 199 Art value of 188 representative, value of 193, 195, 196, 200 Autonomy 127 Bad 5, 27, 28, 95, 140, 143, 157, 178, 181,188, 209, 210, 213, 214,216, 218 •Based on’ 88, 49, 54, 114, 115, 118, 120, 122, 144 Beauty corporeal 203-4 no criterion of 202 definition of 201-2, 208 mental 203-5 • seeing ’ of 190-1 value of 28, 81-2, 83-5, 86, 94, 188-9, 201-2, 209, 211, 224 Being, diet, from existence 110-11 Belief, value of 193-200, 208, 210-11, 212, 219, 224-5 Benevolence, Sidgwiok’s ‘ principle of Bational ’ 102-3 Bentbam 145 naturalistic fallacy 17-19 quantity of pleasure 77-8 Bradley, F. H. pleasure and desire 70 theory of judgment 125 Butler, Bishop 86, 206 Casuistry 4-5 Causal judgments relation to Ethics 21-7, 36, 146-8, 149, 180 Causal relations 31-3, 34-6 Chastity 158 Classical style 216-16 Christ Qfi value of motives 178 o’d love 179 Christian Ethics 178 on ‘ external ’ rightness 177 on ‘ internal ’ rightness 178-9 on value of motives 177-9 on value of virtue 174 CUfford, W. K. 40 Cognition ofevU 217-19 dist. from knowledge 194 relation to will and feeling 129-80, 133, 135-6, 141 value of 85, 189-92, 194, 199, 208, 212, 224, 225 228 INDEX Comtnands, confnscd with moral laws 128-9, 141 Common sense 224 on value of pleasure 86, 91-2, 94-5 on duties 156-9 Compassion 217, 219, 220, 225 Conduct, relation of to Ethics 2-3, 146, 180 Conscience defined 178 not infallible 149, 180 Conscientiousness 218 defined 179 utility of 180 Contempt 211, 217 Corporeal beauty 203-4 Courage 217 Crimes 161 Criterion of beauty 202 evolution as 46, 50, 55-6 of goodness 137-8 pleasure as 91-2, 94-5, 108 of right and wrong 223 will as 137-8 of truth 133 Cruelty 209-11, 218 Darwin 47 Definition, nature of 6-9, 18-20 Desirable, meaning of 65-7, 73 Desire, cause and object of 68-70, 73-4 Duty = cause of or means to good 24-5, 105, 146-8, 167, 180, 223 fuller definitions of 148, 161, 180-1, 222 incapable of being known 149-50, 181 mainly negative 218 object of psychological intuition 148 relations to expediency 167-70, 181 interest 170-1, 181 possibility 150-2 rightness 148 utility 146-7, 167-70 virtue 172 will 160, 161 not self-evident 148, 181 self- regarding 168 Egoistic Hedonism 13 Egoism, as doctrine of end 18, 96-105, 109 contradiction of 99, 101-5, 109 relation to Hedonism 97-8 relation to Naturalistic Hedonism 104-5 Sidgwick’s ‘ Rational ’ 98-9, 102^ Egoism, as doctrine of means 96-7, 105, 167 Emotion aesthetic 190 value of 189-92, 199, 203, 204-5, 208, 209, 211, 212, 217, 224, 225 Empirical 39, 111, 123 Empiricism 103, 124-5, 130 End = effect 32 End = good in itself 18, 24, 64-6, 72, 73, 79-81, 83, 85, 94-5, 184, 216 dist. from ‘ good as means ’ 24, 72, 74, 79-81, 89, 90, 94-5, 106-7, 173-4, 178, 216, 223 ‘ultimate’ 61, 88, 85, 96-7, 99-102, 183, 189 ‘ never justifies means ’ 147,163 End = object of desire 68, 70, 71, 72 Enjoyment 77, 96, 188, 208 aesthetic 188-9, 203 of evil and ugly 208-11, 218 sexual 95 Envy 211 Epistemology 133, 140-1 Ethics Evolutionistic 46, 50, 54, 53 Metaphysical 39, 58, 113-15 Naturalistic 39-41, 58, 59 Practical 115-18, 140, 146, 149, 151, 154, 180, 222 province of 1-6, 21, 24, 26-7, 36, 37, 77, 115, 118, 142-6, 184, 222-4 Eudaemonist 175 Evil 153, 156, 158, 160, 186, 193, 205, 207-14, 224, 225 mixed 208, 209, 211 positive value of 216-22, 225 Evolution 46-8, 54-8 Evolutionistic 46, 50, 52, 64, 58 Existence dist. from being 110-12 judgments about 123-5 relation to value 115-18, 118-22, INDEX 229 125-6, 194, 196, 197-9, 206, 210, 216, 219, 220, 221, 225 Expediency 167-70, 181 Feeling supposed analogy to cognition 129- 31, 141 supposed bearing on Ethics 129- 31, 141 Fiction 121-2 Freedom, value of 86, 186 Freedom (of Will) 127 God 82, 102-4 love of 113, 194, 195-6, 200 Good indefinable 6-16, 41, 79, 110-11, 142-4 = means to good 21, 24 the Absolute 183, 184, 186 the Human 183, 184, 186 mixed and unmixed 208, 209, 214, 215, 217, 219-20, 224 my own 97-9, 101, 170 ‘private’ 99 the 8-9, 18 ‘Universal’ 99-102 Will 174-5, 179 n. 2, 180 Green, T. H. 139 Guyau, M. 46 Habit 171, 175-6, 177 Hatred 211, 214 of beautiful and good 211, 217, 225 of evil and ugly 178, 217, 218, 220, 221, 225 Health 42-3, 65, 157, 167 Heaven 115, 174, 183, 185, 195 upon Earth 186 Hedonism 39, 62, 59-63, 90-1, 96, 108-9, 174 Egoistic 18 Ethical 70, 144 Intuitionistio 59, 74-6, 144 Naturalistic 46, 50, 53, 54, 68, IO4, 105 Psychological 18, 68, 69, 70, 73 Universalistic 103 Hegel 30, 34, 110 Heteronomous 127 Higher 48-9, 78 Hobbes 97 Honesty 175-6 Hypothetical laws 22, 155 Ideal three meanings of 183-4 the 183, 185, 205-7, 220-1 Idealistic 130, 205 Imagination, value of 193, 194, 198, 197, 210, 219, 220, 221, 224 Imperative 128 Industry 157, 167 Intention 179 n. 1 Interest 102 meaning of 97-8, 106, 170-1 dist. from ‘duty’ 170-1, 181 Intrinsic evil ‘207, 213, 218, 224 value 17, 21, 25-30, 36, 147, 173-7, 187, 189, 207, 214-16, 222-4 Intuition = proposition incapable of proof 59, 77, 108 in psychological sense 75, 79, 85, 92, 108, 144, 148-9, 173 Intuitionism in Sidgwick’s sense 59, 76, 144 in proper sense 106, 148 Judgment error of 192-3 two types of ethical 21, 23-7, 115, 146, 148, 222, 224 Justice 178 Justify 97, 101, 147, 163 Kant 110, 129 ‘ Copernican revolution ’ 133 value of Good Will 174-5, 179 n. 2, 180 value of Happiness 174-5 theory of judgment 126 ‘Kingdom of Ends’ 113 ‘practical love’ 179 connection of ‘goodness’ with ‘will’ 126-8 Knowledge involves truth of object 132, 134 involves belief 194 value of 82, 86, 194, 195, 196, 197, 199, 211, 221 230 INDEX Lascivionsness 209-10 Law ethical 155 hypothetical 22, 155 legal 126, 128 moral 126-8, 146, 148, ICO, 162, 165 natural 26, 29, 57, 126, 183, 186 scientific 22-3, 124, 155 Legal 126, 128 Leibniz 125 Life 15, 40, 60, 52, 156 Logical dependence 61, 110, 118, 122, 139, 143-4 fallacy 140-1 Love Christ and Kant on 179 of beautiful and good 177-9, 199, 204, 217, 224 of evil and ugly 209, 210, 211, 217, 225 Lucian 45 Lust 209-10, 218 Lying 154 Mackenzie, Prof. J. S. 114, 120 Material qualities, value of 204, 205- 7, 221, 225 Matter, value of 205-7 Meaning, ‘to have no’ 31, 34-5 Moans = cause or necessary condition 18, 21-3, 89, 180 dist. from ‘ part of organic whole ’ 27, 29-30, 32, 220 goodness as, dist. from intrinsic value 21, 24, 26, 27, 37, 72, 74, 79-81, 89, 90, 94-5, 106-7, 115, 118, 173-4, 178, 187, 195-6, 197-8 216, 223 ‘not justified by end’ 147, 163 Mental beauty of 203-5, 225 value of 205-7 Mercy 178 Metaphysical 39, 58, 110-15, 139-40 Method of discovering intrinsic value 20, 36, 59-60, 64, 89, 91, 92, 93, 95, 142-5, 173, 185-6, 187-8, 195, 197-8, 206-7, 209, 223 of discovering value as means 22-3, 146, 148-54, 172-3 Mill, J. S. 145 Hedonism 63-81, 108 naturalistic fallacy 40, 66-7, 69, 72-3, 74, 104, 108 Psychological Hedonism 68, 72, 73-4 quality of pleasure 77-81, 108 Utilitarianism 104-5 Moral approbation 171 law 126-8, 146, 148, 160, 162, 165 obligation 128 sentiment 168, 178, 217-19 Motive 67, 70, 177, 178-80 Murder 148, 151, 154, 156-7, 178 Natural laws 26, 29, 57, 126, 183, 186 objects and properties 13-14, 39-41, 58, 110-11 selection 47 Natural = normal 42-4, 58 Natural = necessary 44-5, 58 Naturalism 20, 40, 58, 144 Naturalistic Ethics 39—41, 58, 59 fallacy 10, 13-14, 18-20, 38-9, 48, 57, 58, 61, 64, 66-7, 69, 72-3, 74, 104, 108, 114, 118, 124, 125, 139, 173, 176, 201 Hedonism 46, 50, 53, 54, 68, 104, 105 Nature 40-1, 110, 111, 112 Nature, life according to 41-2, 113 Nature, value of 188, 193, 195, 200, 206 Necessity analytic 22, 33-4, 35, 220, 221 causal or natural 29, 31-2, 34, 186, 187 New Testament 177, 178, 179 Object of cognition 141, 191, 192, 193, 211 of desire 68-70 natural 13-14, 39-41, 58, 110-11 Objective 82, 201 Obligation moral 103, 128, 147 Obligatory 25, 148, 170 INDEX 231 Organic relation, unity, whole common usage 30-6 my own usage 27-31, 32-3, 36, 93, 96, 149, 184, 187, 189, 190, 202, 206, 208, 212, 215, 220, 223 Ought to aim at 24-6, 100 to do 26, 105, 115, 116, 117, 127, 128, 140, 146, 148, 173, 180, 223 to be or exist 17, 115, 118, 127, 128, 148, 173, 180, 223 Pain 64, 65, 210, 212-4, 217, 222-3, 225 Particular 3-4 Perception 111, 112, 134, 136 Pessimism 61, 53, 156 Plato on Egoism 98 on goods 178 on Hedonism 88 on value of Knowledge 199 on universal truths 111 Pleasure 12-13, 16 consciousness of 87-91, 109, 212 as criterion 91-2, 108 and desire 68-71, 73-4 and ‘pleasures’ 79 ‘quality of’ 77-81 value of, 39, 46, 50-4, 59-66, 71-2, 74-5, 79-81, 83, 85-96, 144, 146, 171, 173, 174, 188, 205, 212-14, 222-3 Pity 217, 221 Positive science 39 Possible action 150-1 Practical, 216, 221 Ethics 115-18, 140, 146, 149, 151, 154, 180, 222 Philosophy 2 Practice 2, 20 Praise 171 Preference 77-9, 131 Promises 157 Property, respect of 157 Propositions, types of 123-6 Prove 11, 65, 66, 74, 75-7, 99, 112, 137, 141, 143, 145, 169, 181 Prudence, 168 ‘Maxim of’ 102-4 Psychological 11, 130, 140, 148 Hedonism 18, 68, 69, 70, 73 Punishment 164 retributive or vindictive 214, 215, 216, 221 Reason 143-4 Representative art 193 Reward 174 Right 18, 24-5, 105, 146, 180, 216, 218, 223 dist. from ‘ duty ’ 148 relation to expediency 167 externally 176-7 internally 179 n. 1 Romantic style 215-16 Rousseau 42 Sanctions 159, 164 Secondary qualities 206 Self-evidence 143, 144, 148, 181 Self-realisation 113, 114, 120, 188 Self-sacrifice 170 Sensation 134 Sensationalist 130 Sidgwick, Henry 145 value of beauty 81-4, 85-7 on Bentham 17-19 rationality of Egoism 99-103 ‘ good ’ unanalysable 17 Hedonism 59, 63, 64, 81-7, 91-6, 108-9 ‘ method ’ of Intuitionism 59, 92—4 value of knowledge 82, 86 neglects principle of organic wholes 93 pleasure as criterion 91-2, 94-5 quality of pleasure 77, 81 value of unconscious 81—4 Sins 161 Spencer, Herbert 46, 48-58 Spinoza 110, 113 Spiritual, value of 205-6 Summum Bonum 183, 205 Stoics 41, 110 Synthetic 7, 58, 143 Taste, error of 192-3, 211 Taylor, A. E. 60 Temperance 157, 168 Theodicies 220 Tragedy 219, 221 232 INDEX Truth relation to existence 111, 124-5 cognition 130, 132-i, 136, 141, 196 knowledge 134, 194 types of 111-12, 124-5 value of 85-6, 193-200, 208, 210, 211, 212 Tyndall 40 Ugly 208, 209-11, 214, 216-19, 221 Ultimate end 51, 83, 85, 96-7, 99-102, 183, 189 Unity 222 organic, see ‘Organic Universal Good 99-102 truths 21-3, 27, 57, 111, 126, 154-5, 181 Universalistio Hedonism 103 Useful 106, 146, 167 Utilitarianism 63, 96, 99, 101-7, 109 Utopias 183, 186 Value intrinsic 17, 21, 25-30, 36, 147, 173-7, 187, 189, 207, 214-16, 222-4 as means 21, 174, 195-6 negative 216, 216 Vice 171, 209, 211 Virtue definition of 171-3, 181, 223 three kinds of 175 mixed 221 relation to ‘duty’ 172 value of 83, 85, 86, 87, 173-80, 181-2, 217-19, 221-2 Volition supposed coordination with cognition 129-30, 133, 135-6, 141 supposed bearing on Ethics 130, 136, 141 Whole good as a 208, 214-16, 219, 221 good on the 214-16, 219, 220, ‘221 organic, see ‘Organic’ Wickedness 220 Will as criterion of value 137-8 relation to duty 160, 161, 180 the Good 174-5, 179 a. 2, 180 supposed analogy to cognition 129- 30, 135-6 supposed bearing on Ethics 126-7, 128-31, 13.5-9, 141 Wrong 180, 218, 223 I Hoort CZ